Papers by Anthony Kauders
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, 2024
Luzifer-Amor, 2023
2 Die Tatsache, dass keines dieser wichtigen Bücher zitiert bzw. bibliografiert wird, mag an dies... more 2 Die Tatsache, dass keines dieser wichtigen Bücher zitiert bzw. bibliografiert wird, mag an dieser Herangehensweise liegen.
D er bekannte britische Anthropologe I.M. Lewis beschreibt die typische schamanistische Seance al... more D er bekannte britische Anthropologe I.M. Lewis beschreibt die typische schamanistische Seance als "eine selbstbewusste und egalitäre Vorstellung von der Beziehung zwischen Menschen und dem Göttlichen". Danach wird in solchen Momenten die "ursprüngliche Übereinstimmung zwischen Gott und dem Menschen" fortgeführt, die heutzutage nur noch "nostalgisch" in Schöpfungsmythen oder persönlichen Heils ver sprechen zum Ausdruck komme (Lewis, 2003, S. 184; siehe auch Egli, 2015). Der Scha mane, so Lewis, meistere Geister und kontrolliere deren Erscheinungsformen, um dadurch das von jenen "pathogenen Mächten verursachte Leid zu behandeln und zu beherrschen" (S. 45). Die Hypnose, ob von Laien oder Experten praktiziert, versucht Ähnliches zu bewirken. Dennoch gehen die meisten Kommentatoren davon aus, dass lediglich professionelle Hypnotherapeuten-also ausgebildete Ärzte und Psychologen-dazu in der Lage seien, Leiden zu behandeln und Krankheiten zu beherrschen. Überraschend ist das nicht, erinnert diese Sicht doch an die Professionalisierungsbemühungen der sich neu formierenden Fachgebiete Psychologie und Psychiatrie seit Ende des 19.
Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 2022
This essay critically engages with the view that governmentality defined the param- eters of psyc... more This essay critically engages with the view that governmentality defined the param- eters of psychotherapy in the late twentieth century. Even though different therapeutic schools embraced the values of autonomy, authenticity, and self-control, the meaning of these objectives varied, and gave rise to interpretations that were not confined to the goal of (“neoliberal”) self-optimization. While in some cases contemporaries asso- ciated psychotherapy with familiar (Enlightenment and middle-class) aims of sov- ereignty of reason and emotional restraint, in other instances they highlighted functionality and efficiency as desirable outcomes of therapy. The essay explores debates around personal self-actualization against the backdrop of psychoanalytic discourse in Germany between 1970 and 1990.
Antisemitism Studies, 2022
This essay traces the recent critique of realistic conflict theory as it pertains to the study of... more This essay traces the recent critique of realistic conflict theory as it pertains to the study of antisemitism. In doing so, it will provide an overview of the arguments comprising the debate, outline the ways in which these arguments depend on specific psychological notions, and question whether the notions involved provide sufficient depth and detail to account for antisemitic behav- ior. The aim of this article is two-fold. First, it seeks to demonstrate that realis- tic conflict theory relies on psychological premises, in this case assumptions that approximate what social psychologists call social inference theory. Since realis- tic conflict theory relies so heavily on social inference, it is difficult to address “real conflict” without at the same time invoking long-term prejudice. Second, the article suggests that relative deprivation theory may contribute to the field of antisemitism studies by bridging the epistemological gap between “realistic conflict” and “psychological fantasy,” demonstrating how “objective” change occasions conflicting feelings of entitlement and equally conflicting percep- tions of social justice.
The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2021
This article discusses recent work on German-Jewish agency between 1914 and 1938. To find out whe... more This article discusses recent work on German-Jewish agency between 1914 and 1938. To find out whether ‘agency’ might be a helpful category for examining the crises facing Central European Jewry in this period, the article addresses the subject from the perspectives of individual and collective agency, applying classifications that philosophers have employed to make sense of human conduct. As I hope to show, these delimitations are only a preliminary step in trying to determine the explanatory power of agency. Whether the latter can serve as a tool in future work on modern German-Jewish history depends on the suitability of more specific philosophies of agency. Here the work of Christine Korsgaard and especially Michael Bratman may prove helpful in reflecting both on the self-understanding of German Jews in the first decades of the twentieth century and on their ‘freedom of action’ once this self-understanding was called into question. There is reason to see planning structures—groun...
The American journal of clinical hypnosis, 2017
The article intends to retrace and review German discourse on hypnotic suggestion from 1900 onwar... more The article intends to retrace and review German discourse on hypnotic suggestion from 1900 onward, demonstrating the variety of arguments advanced to account for the social relationship in the hypnotic setting well before the emergence of sociocognitive theory. Using Spanos's distinction between "happenings" and "doings," it shows how, in the case of the "social" in early 20th century German texts on (hypnotic) suggestion, the passive observer, recipient, or victim of hypnosis, a trope familiar to the discipline for many decades, was called into question. This image, however, was not called into question by scientists experimenting in laboratories. On the contrary, the neurologists, psychologists, and philosophers who proffered a new way of seeing suggestion, one that privileged the hypnotic as well as the reciprocity between hypnotist and hypnotic, were part of a wider movement within the social sciences (grounded in hermeneutics, phenomenology, a...
Holocaust and Genocide Studies , 2022
Scholars of the Third Reich have recently begun to study the ethical standards of National Social... more Scholars of the Third Reich have recently begun to study the ethical standards of National Socialist antisemites. Literature on Nazi morality frames German antisemitism as an attempt to reshape the country's mores, but it pays insufficient attention to the psychological processes at work in replacing universalism with particularism. The author argues that cognitive dissonance theory could account for the uses and abuses of morality after 1933. He addresses three interrelated questions: did the regime utilize morality primarily to reduce cognitive dissonance?; did Germans invoke morality mainly to reduce cognitive dissonance?; and how successful was the appeal to morality in cognitive dissonance reduction? The first question makes us think about how morality can preempt feelings of cognitive dissonance prior to the implementation of certain policies or actions; the second explores how morality decreases dissonance afterward; and the third suggests that new moral frameworks replace older ones, eliminating cognitive dissonance altogether.
in Jennifer M. Kapczinski and Caroline A. Kita (eds), The Arts of Democratization: Styling Political Sensibilities in Postwar West Germany (University of Michigan Press), 2022
Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte / herausgegeben vom Institut für Deutsche Geschichte
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, 2021
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2021
This article discusses recent work on German-Jewish agency between 1914 and 1938. To find out whe... more This article discusses recent work on German-Jewish agency between 1914 and 1938. To find out whether 'agency' might be a helpful category for examining the crises facing Central European Jewry in this period, the article addresses the subject from the perspectives of individual and collective agency, applying classifications that philosophers have employed to make sense of human conduct. As I hope to show, these delimitations are only a preliminary step in trying to determine the explanatory power of agency. Whether the latter can serve as a tool in future work on modern German-Jewish history depends on the suitability of more specific philosophies of agency. Here the work of Christine Korsgaard and especially Michael Bratman may prove helpful in reflecting both on the self-understanding of German Jews in the first decades of the twentieth century and on their 'freedom of action' once this self-understanding was called into question. There is reason to see planning structures-grounded in the diachronic organization of our temporally extended selves-as basic to our individual and collective agency. Without 'planning agency', I will argue, 'agency' refers to mere action or choice. 'Human beings are condemned to choice and action', writes philosopher Christine Korsgaard. 1 And she continues: 'Maybe you think you can avoid it, by resolutely standing still, refusing to act, refusing to move. But it's no use, for that will be something you have chosen to do, and then you will have acted after all. Choosing not to act makes not acting a kind of action, makes it something that you do.' 2 'Agency', if we accept this account, is ubiquitous wherever and whenever entities 'act on each other and interact with each other'. 3 Insofar as German Jews in the first decades of the last century were entities like you and me, we might ask how the subject of 'German-Jewish agency' could be examined constructively.
Page 1. DEMOCRATlZATlON AND THE JEWS MUN1CH, 1945-1965 ANTHONY D. KAUDERS Page 2. Page 3. Page 4.... more Page 1. DEMOCRATlZATlON AND THE JEWS MUN1CH, 1945-1965 ANTHONY D. KAUDERS Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. PUBL1SHED FOB THE V1DAL SAS5OON 1NTERNAT1ONAL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF ANT1SEM1T1SM ...
Gideon Reuveni and Diana Franklin (eds.), The Future of the German-Jewish Past: Memory and the Question of Antisemitism (Purdue University Press), 2021
P sychohistory has a bad name, and for good reason. Historians are loath to psychoanalyze individ... more P sychohistory has a bad name, and for good reason. Historians are loath to psychoanalyze individuals, whether these be dead or alive, and they are equally loath to pass judgment on personalities, whether these be ordinary or pathological. Students and laypeople, however, find the idea of combining history with psychology attractive, even commonsensical. 1 The appeal may be misguided and confirm the reservations mentioned above. But I would like to suggest that the interplay between psychology and history makes perfect sense, even though this interplay need not be called psychohistory and even though the interplay I am concerned with highlights the benefits for the historian rather than the advantages for the psychologist.
A B S T R A C T. The history of free will has yet to be written. With few exceptions, the literat... more A B S T R A C T. The history of free will has yet to be written. With few exceptions, the literature on the subject is dominated by legal and philosophical works, most of which recount the ideas of prominent thinkers or discuss hypothetical questions far removed from specific historical contexts. The following article seeks to redress the balance by tracing the debate on hypnosis in Germany from to . Examining responses to hypnosis is tantamount to recording common understandings of autonomy and heteronomy, self-control and mind control, free will and automaticity. More specifically, it is possible to identify distinct philosophical positions related to the question as to whether hypnosis could surmount free will or not. The article demonstrates that the discourse often centred on the perceived struggle, located within a particular 'personality', between an individual's 'character' or 'soul' and the infiltration by a foreign or hostile force. While one group (compatibilists) emphasized the resilience of the 'moral inhibitions', another group (determinists) doubted that these were sufficient to withstand hypnosis.
The article intends to retrace and review German discourse on hypnotic suggestion from 1900 onwar... more The article intends to retrace and review German discourse on hypnotic suggestion from 1900 onward, demonstrating the variety of arguments advanced to account for the social relationship in the hypnotic setting well before the emergence of sociocognitive theory. Using Spanos’s distinction between “happenings” and “doings,” it shows how, in the case of the “social” in early twentieth-century German texts on (hypnotic) suggestion, the passive observer, recipient, or victim of hypnosis, a trope familiar to the discipline for many decades, was called into question. This image, however, was not called into question by scientists experimenting in laboratories. On the contrary, the neurologists, psychologists, and philosophers who proffered a new way of seeing suggestion, one that privileged the hypnotic as well as the reciprocity between hypnotist and hypnotic, were part of a wider movement within the social sciences (grounded in hermeneutics, phenomenology, and Gestalt theory) that distanced itself from “positivistic” methodologies and “scientistic” verities. The article, then, seeks to remind readers that the sociocognitive perspective does not define the sociopsychological study of hypnosis.
Psychoanalysis is not Jewish, but the idea that it might be has occupied the minds of many for ov... more Psychoanalysis is not Jewish, but the idea that it might be has occupied the minds of many for over one hundred years. Th ere have been several reasons for this preoccupation. Sigmund Freud himself feared that the early psychoanalytic "movement," composed primarily of Jews, might be interpreted along ethnic lines, which he believed would seriously jeopardize its prospects as a science. Th is concern was unfounded, as Gentiles came to join his camp and as Jews more often than not rejected his fi ndings. Later, Freud's German-speaking opponents increasingly denounced psychoanalysis as a Jewish invention that originated in a specifi cally Jewish psyche. Th is obsession hardly made an impact elsewhere, as laypeople and professionals alike continued to ponder his system of thought rather than agonize over its pedigree. In the second half of the twentieth century, historians, literary theorists, and psychoanalysts returned to the subject, off ering three distinct explanations for the emergence of Freudianism: a sociological one, frequently involving psychological reasoning; an intellectual one, usually examining the scientifi c, religious, and ideological progenitors of psychoanalysis; and, more recently, a racial one, controversially positing an unconscious ethnic bond that made psychoanalysis (and Judaism as such) possible. Although it is diffi cult to establish a chronology of these approaches, the sociological explanation, with its reliance on place, appears to carry less and less weight today, often being replaced by accounts that embrace Freudian speculation about transgenerational (epigenetic) inheritance, a perspective that ignores place altogether. We have moved, in short, from territory (the Habsburg Empire, Vienna, or the B'nai B'rith chapter in the Austrian capital) to a Rosenzweig-like Jewishness that lies beyond this world.
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Papers by Anthony Kauders