Psychologies In Revolution: Alexander Luria’s ’Romantic Science’ And Soviet Social History

Description

This book situates the work of the Soviet psychologist and neurologist Alexander Luria (1902-1977) in its historical context and explores the 'romantic' approach to scientific writing developed in his case histories. Luria consistently asserted that human consciousness was formed by cultural and historical experience. He described psychology as the ‘science of social history’ and his ideas about subjectivity, cognition and mental health have a history of their own. Lines of mutual influence existed between Luria and his colleagues on the other side of the iron curtain, but Psychologies in Revolution also discusses Luria’s research in relation to Soviet history – from the October Revolution of 1917 through the collectivisation of agriculture and Stalinist purges of the 1930s to the Second World War and, finally, the relative stability of the Brezhnev era – foregrounding the often marginalised people with whom Luria’s clinical work brought him into contact. By historicising science and by focusing on a theoretical approach which itself emphasised the centrality of social and political factors for understanding human subjectivity, the book also seeks to contribute to current debates in the medical humanities. Acknowledgements......Page 6 Note on Transliteration......Page 8 Contents......Page 9 Chapter 1: Introduction......Page 10 The Science of Social History......Page 15 Mapping Soviet Psychic Territories......Page 20 Cracked Monoliths......Page 22 Paths of Development: Methodology and Structure......Page 30 Chapter 2: The Criminal......Page 36 Luria’s Early Career: Kazan 1917–1923......Page 39 Objective Psychoanalysis......Page 44 Murder Cases......Page 53 Other Voices, Other Rooms......Page 60 Truth and Lies......Page 68 Conclusion......Page 77 Chapter 3: The ‘Primitive’......Page 80 Psychology as Social History......Page 84 Revolution as Evolution......Page 90 Luria Contra Gestalt (The Historical vs. the Universal)......Page 97 Language and Thought......Page 104 Revolutionary Assimilation......Page 111 Unveiling ‘Primitive’ Psychology......Page 115 Conclusion......Page 124 Chapter 4: The Child......Page 126 Children of the Revolution......Page 131 The Newborn Baby: From Organic Passivity to Historical Activity......Page 134 Paradoxes of the Vanguard......Page 140 Soviet Toys......Page 144 Language and Organisation......Page 149 Children of the Revolution......Page 156 Conclusion......Page 168 Chapter 5: The Aphasic......Page 173 New Wounded......Page 175 Wartime Work: Adaptation and Restoration......Page 178 A World Shattered and Remade: Between Spontaneity and Consciousness......Page 189 The Writing Cure......Page 195 The Man with a Shattered Brain: The History of a World Wound......Page 201 Monuments as Ruins: Between Modernism and Socialist Realism......Page 210 Conclusion......Page 216 Chapter 6: The Synaesthete......Page 219 Progress/Regress......Page 220 Colliding Forms of Perception......Page 225 Beginnings and Endings......Page 230 Suffering from Reminiscences......Page 237 Conclusion......Page 245 Critical Theory and Romantic Science......Page 247 Index......Page 262