On the Edge of the Abyss

“Boulouque demonstrates the emergence of the idea of the unconscious out of complex inter-cultural dialectics, including between Lurianic Kabbalah and German Idealism, religious and secular thinkers, Emersonian Transcendentalism and American Jewish innovators, German Jewish émigrés and contemporary rabbis. She explores this story’s implications for ethnic and national identity as well as for power relationships between majorities and minorities. This work is a major contribution to central issues across the humanities today.” – Nathaniel Berman, Brown University“Is there anything new to say about the unconscious? This remarkable book’s answer is affirmative. With subtle intelligence and vast erudition, Boulouque exposes the kabbalistic roots of the unconscious, and argues that the pre-Freudian unconscious is a better guide than the Freudian in the exploration of otherness.” – Paul Franks, Yale University“In On the Edge of the Abyss, Boulouque drills deep into modern Jewish thought to excavate a variety of fascinating and suggestive renderings of the unconscious before Freud. She takes the reader on a circuitous journey across a wide swath of sources, quilting together many cases where the unconscious emerged from the depths of Jewish thinking. On this subject, nothing has been done before. Highly recommended.” – Shaul Magid, Dartmouth University

Clémence Boulouque is the Carl and Bernice Associate Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of many books, including Another Modernity: Elia Benamozegh’s Jewish Universalism.