Editorial

According to Freud this is a “scientific” myth, while according to Lacan it is “brilliant.” As we know, this account of the Killing of the father has had considerable theoretical effects, not only within psychoanalysis but also in political philosophy, anthropology, and the history of religions. While stems first of all from a clinical aim this psychoanalytical myth could only be invented by giving its neighboring disciplines the role of privileged interlocutor. And so this was an “interdisciplinary” approach even before there was a name for it, and upon this Freud founded the first “research in psychoanalysis.” The centenary of this step forward is commemorated in this, our twenty-second issue, with the publication of some of the contributions that were delivered during an international interdisciplinary colloquium that examined afresh – one hundred years down the line – both the posterity and the present-day pertinence of Totem and Taboo in the twenty-first century.