On exhibit Thursday, May 3 – Friday, August 31, 2012
Probably no one has had a more profound impact on contemporary thought than Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the Austrian neurologist known as the father of psychoanalysis. From the publication of his book Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, in which he shocked the world with his analysis of dreams as disguised manifestations of repressed sexual desires, through his division of the mind into the id, the ego, and the super-ego, published in 1923, Freud’s ideas revolutionized the western world’s perception of human experience and thought. Violently disputed by some psychologists and psychiatrists and fervently embraced by others, his controversial ideas have had an unequaled influence on society and culture.
The Karpeles Museum will present an exciting selection of documents on the work and life of Sigmund Freud, including pages from his manuscripts and remarkable letters to colleagues and friends about his theories and his personal life. There is a letter about his narrow escape from the Nazis in Vienna in 1938 and another about the political issues of German National Socialism in Austria. Included is a personal letter (in English, of which, along with German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, he had a complete command) about the success of his 1916 book Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, and of the popularity of his ideas in the U. S. in the 1920s. In other letters, written between 1902 and 1909, Freud candidly discusses his own dreams of falling, flying, and appearing naked in public. The exhibition affords a unique opportunity to see the ideas of this revolutionary thinker written in his own words and his own hand.
The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum is located at 94 Broadway, across from City Hall, in the City of Newburgh. The Karpeles Museums are a national chain with nine in the U.S., specializing in the preservation and display of original, historically significant documents and manuscripts. Museum Hours: Thu.-Sat., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, 12 to 4 p.m. Admission is always free.
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