Uncanny Encounters: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and the End of Alterity

Exploring the period around 1900, the book delves into European travels to distant lands, where explorers expected the exotic but instead found the "uncannily" familiar, a concept elaborated by Freud. John Zilcosky illustrates how these experiences shaped Freud's ideas and impacted literary modernists, highlighting the ongoing relevance of these cross-cultural encounters in contemporary discussions of identity and anxiety. The narrative connects historical exploration with modern cultural reflections, revealing the complexities of familiarity and foreignness.