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The Unconcept
T he F re udi an unc anny i n l aT e- T we nT i e Th- ce nTury T heory
LITERATURE / PHILOSOPHY
Te Unconcept is the rst genealogy of the concept of the Freudian uncanny.
It traces the development, paradoxes, and movements of this negative concept
through various elds and disciplines from psychoanalysis, literary theory,
and philosophy to lm studies, genre studies, sociology, religion, architecture
theory, and contemporary art. Anneleen Masschelein explores the vagaries of
this unconcept in the twentieth century, beginning with Freuds seminal essay
Te Uncanny, through a period of conceptual latency, leading to the rst real
conceptualizations in the 1970s and then on to the present dissemination of
the uncanny to exotic elds such as hauntology, the study of ghosts, robotics,
and articial intelligence. She unearths new material on the uncanny from
the English, French, and German traditions, and sheds light on the status of
the concept in contemporary theory and practice in the humanities. In this
essential reference book for researchers and students of the uncanny, the
familiar contours of the intellectual history of the twentieth century appear in
a new and exciting light.
Anneleen Masschelein is Assistant Professor in Literary Teory and Cultural
Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and Postdoctoral
Researcher at the National Fund of Scientic Research, Flanders.
SUNY Seri eS | i NSi NUat i oNS: Phi loSoPhY, PSYchoaNalYSi S, l i teratUre
Charl es shepherdson, edi tor
State UNi verSi t Y of New York PreSS
www. sunypress. edu
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The Unconcept
33635_SP_MAS_FM_00i-00x.indd i 11/3/10 12:30:19 PM
SUNY series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature