(1999). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 47:1423-1428 Review by: Lewis A. Kirshner Louis Althusser was a prominent Marxist intellectual who taught at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Born in 1918, he was himself a “normalien,” whose studies in philosophy were interrupted by the Second World War. During the invasion of France he was captured by the German army, and he spent four and a half years as a prisoner. After repatriation, Althusser resumed his preparation for the agrégé in philosophy, and began an active career as a writer and teacher closely identified with the French communist party. He was a significant figure in the postwar efflorescence that saw such remarkable thinkers as Barthes, Foucault, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty, and Piaget creating the new paradigm of structuralism, which was to have profound effects on many disciplines. Thanks in part to Althusser, psychoanalysis was able to play an important part in these developments and, through the influence of Jacques Lacan, to sh [This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.] |
