THALASSA is the journal of the Sándor Ferenczi Society, Budapest.
THALASSA is the title of Sándor Ferenczi’s classical work.
THALASSA symbolically refers to the sea, the womb, the origin, the source.
THALASSA is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to free investigations in psychoanalysis, culture and society.
THALASSA has roots in the historical traditions of Hungarian psychoanalysis, but is not committed to any particular school or authority.
THALASSA welcomes all original contributions, historical, theoretical, or critical, dealing with the common problems of psychoanalysis and the humanities.
The first issue of THALASSA (1990/1) is based on the proceedings of the first scientific conference of the Sándor Ferenczi Society, held in Budapest, 1989, under the title Psychoanalysis and Society. The second issue (1991/1) is devoted to the life and work of Sándor Ferenczi. The third issue of our review (1991/2) deals with the relationship between psychoanalysis and hermeneutics. The fourth issue (1992/1) is devoted to the problems of the relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. The fifth issue (1992/2) is a memorial volume devoted to the life and work of Géza Róheim. The sixth issue (1993/1) contains psychoanalytic studies on language, fiction and cognition. The seventh issue (1993/2) is devoted to the life work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The focus theme of the eighth and ninth issue (1994/1–2) are the effects and aftereffects of the Holocaust — from both psychoanalytic and psychosocial point of view. This issue commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. The tenth and eleventh issue (1995/1–2) contains articles on the relationship between psychoanalysis, postmodernism, art, and mass phenomena. The main topic of the twelfth issue (1996/1) is the relationship between psychoanalysis and feminism and related issues. The thirteenth issue (1996/2) is devoted to the life and work of Leopold Szondi, the founder of “fate analysis”, and published as well a series of newly discovered pre-psychoanalytic writings of Sándor Ferenczi. In our fourteenth issue we continued the series on psychoanalysis and feminism, and we published — among others — texts by Marcel Proust, Georg Groddeck and Bruno Bettelheim. In the next, 1997/2 issue will contain, among others, articles on history of psychoanalysis in Russia and in other East European countries. We also plan to start a new series on the Hungarian psychoanalytic emigration to France. At first, we present the work of Béla Grünberger and Iván Fónagy.
The thematic part of the present issue deals with the postmodern intersections between philosophy and psychoanalysis. In his introductory essay Psychoanalysis after Weltanschauung ANTAL BÓKAY suggests that the idea of this important relation goes back to the early days of psychoanalysis. Freud discussed the theme in a full chapter in the New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933). Modern psychoanalysis, first of all, American ego psychology, accepted Freud’s attitude that relegated psychoanalysis into the realm of scientific Weltanschauung, “world-view”, as the only objective and reliable mode of understanding in the modern world.
Postmodern philosophy, however, questioned the absolute axiomatic position of the scientific world-view, and explored its bases that were understood as unquestionable before. One of the most influential author of this trend is JACQUES DERRIDA whose essay Conjoint interpretations is published in our MAJOR ARTICLES section. This essay (a chapter from Derrida’s 1980 book entitled The Post Card — From Socrates to Freud and Beyond) deconstructs the meaning and the interpretative background of Freud’s famous observation concerning his grandson’s play fort-da.
We also publish her a text entitled What is the death instinct? by GILLES DELEUZE, who, ever since his Anti-Oedipus, written together with Félix Guattari, showed the crucial role of the repressed social subjectivity as an essential interpretative force that questions the objective, scientific understanding of the psyche.
The same rhetorical shift in the position of the interpretator is the theme of PHILIPPE LACOU-LABARTHE’ s essay Theatrum Analyticum that deals with the problem of representation and with connected ideas in Freud’s early, but in the then unpublished paper Psychopathic Characters on the Stage.
JOLÁN ORBÁN in her article Different readings of Freud: Lacan and Derrida discusses the similarities and differences of the major postmodern approaches to psychoanalysis, namely, Derrida’s philosophy and Lacan’s psychoanalysis. She argues that Laced placed more emphasis on the disintegrated, or the non-integrated subject, and was less concerned, in contrast to Derrida, the rhetorical rewriting position of the interpretative process.
GÁBOR KATONA’s essay Modern pragmatism and psychoanalysis. Rorty’s ironical esthete on the analytical couch offers an analysis of the ideas of the American philosopher Richard Rorty. According to the author, Rorty’s approach evolved from formal linguistic philosophy, but his encounter with pragmatism helped him to state and analyse the postmodern position of subjectivity. The use of psychoanalysis as a post-Cartesian understanding of the individual, helped him to describe the fluid nature of human individuality.
The MAJOR ARTICLES section contains two more articles. JUDITH BUTLER’s essay Contingent foundations: feminism and the question of “postmodernism” deals with the problem of the status of subjectivity in postmodern discoures and its relationship to modern feminism. In his article The inherent transgression, or the obscenity of power SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK discusses the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis, postmodern multiculturalism and power relations.
In our WORKSHOP section we publish GYÖRGY PÉTER HÁRS’s contribution entitled Tithonos and Mickey Mouse, which deals with the problem of human neothenia as reflected in Géza Róheim’s theory. The author argues that human neothenia is an eminently psychological phenomenon irrespectively of the truth of its biological foundation. We also publish ANDREA RITTER’s article Stephen Hawking’s wonderful journey that is analysis of the relationship between creativity and illness on the example of the great physicist Stephen Hawking.
In our BOOKS section we publish André Haynal’s review on the recent Hungarian translation of Sándor Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary.
We accept contributions in Hungarian, English, German or French. Authors are requested to provide their papers with an English and/or Hungarian summary. Original articles, reviews, reflections, and suggestions should be sent to Dr. Ferenc Erõs, Institute of Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Teréz krt. 13., H 1067 Budapest. Phone: (36-1) 322-0425, fax: (36-1) 342-0514. E-mail address: feros@orange.okt.cogpsyphy.hu
THALASSA is published by the Thalassa Foundation, Budapest (address above). Subscription and distribution: SZIGET REHABILITÁCIÓS SZÖVETKEZET, Murányi u. 21, H-1078 Budapest, phone (36-1) 342-7158.
The present issue of THALASSA was supported by the the National Cultural Fund of the Republic of Hungary.
Our E-mail address: thalassa@c3.hu