Energizing the Elemental: Notes on a Conversation with Carl E. Schorske

In the late summer of 2011 I made my way down to southern New Jersey to spend some time with Carl and Elizabeth Schorske. I hadn't seen the Schorskes in some time, though we speak every so often by telephone. Given the occasion of this issue of American Imago in his honor, we were to talk about his early encounters with the work of Freud and psychoanalysis. These encounters took place during the Second World War, when Carl worked at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and in the 1950s, when he taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Freud and psychoanalysis fell in and out of focus as our conversation meandered amongst the memories we have in common—especially with regard to Wesleyan, where I was his student (and am now the president). I began my historical studies with Carl there in 1976 and completed my Ph.D. under his guidance at Princeton seven years later. I first listened to Wagner and Mahler in his classes, and I still teach many of the books he assigned to me. I've written about his historiography and edited a collection of essays in his honor.1 Having a conversation with Carl for American Imago was for me a real pleasure.

The last time we had discussed Freud and psychoanalysis in any depth was more than fifteen years ago when I was named the curator (at his suggestion, I think) of a Library of Congress exhibition on the subject.2 But Freud has been there from the very beginning of our relationship. I was a freshman at Wesleyan and already interested in Freud when Carl returned to the university as a visiting professor. I talked my way into his seminar on Vienna. I was in way over my head, but I saw this as a great opportunity to do a research project on Freud. This intense interest in Freud was unusual for a frosh in the mid