Child Abuse in Freud's Vienna: Postcards from the End of the WorldNYU Press, 1995 - 275 pages On the cusp of the twentieth century, in the most cosmopolitan city in the world, there a sensation that entranced the city's populace as nothing had before-a sensation that cast a great and disturbing shadow over the city, and then vanished, leaving no more trace than a shadow would. Child Abuse in Freud's Vienna is the story of that forgotten sensation in this fabled city.In the autumn of 1899, Vienna's attention was focused not on its extraordinary cultural life, but on child abuse-specifically, two cases of child murder and two of abuse. While Sigmund Freud was anxiously awaiting the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he first theorized about the Oedipal hostilities between parents and children, every day's headlines proclaimed the ugly reality of child abuse. Focusing on the four cases that dominated the pages of the newspapers, Larry Wolff's riveting narrative paints a picture of a great city enthralled by a spectacle it desperately wished to ignore. |
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accused Anna Hummel Anna Kutschera anti-Semitism Arbeiter-Zeitung Austrian beat Benedikt bourgeois century child abuse sensation childhood court courtroom cultural daughter death December defense dramatic Emperor Fackel fact fantasies father Felix Dörmann Felzmann fin-de-siècle fin-de-siècle Vienna Freud to Wilhelm Habsburg hatred Hedwig Keplinger Hedwig Keplinger's Herzl Hilsner Hitler Hofmannsthal Hofmannsthal's Hummel and Kutschera Hummel trial Hysteria Interpretation of Dreams Jewish Jews Joseph Hummel judge Juliane Hummel jury Karl Kraus Kraus's Kutschera trial Letters of Sigmund liberal literary Ludovica Marie Kutschera mistreatment mother murder and suicide Neue Freie Presse newspaper October Oedipus complex poet police political post official prosecutor psychological punishment ritual murder Rosa Marianek Rudolf Kutschera Schnitzler seduction theory sensation of 1899 sentimental servant girl sexual Sigmund Freud social spectators Stefan Zweig stepmother story testified testimony Theodor Herzl tion torture trans Translation by L. W. Viennese wife Wilhelm Fliess woman wrote York Young Vienna Zweig