Cultural Zoo

'This book is a major contribution to culture and to the psychoanalytic literature. The authors explore how animals, both wild and domesticated, have powerful symbolic meanings in our psyches, mythology, religion, literature, art, music, and popular culture. From the prehistoric art of Lascaux to Picasso, from The Fly to the American eagle, the psychoanalytic perceptions are subtle and suggestive, the aesthetic, film, and national insights are a delight.'-Peter Loewenberg, Dean, Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, Professor of History and Political Psychology, UCLA'Our cousins - the animals - swarm, creep, fly, swim, and crawl all about us, even sharing our houses and infesting our bodies. We hunt them, breed, them, clothe ourselves with them, and eat them for dinner (as they sometimes do to us). They populate our literature, myths, religions, arts, our language and its metaphors, and they haunt our unconscious fantasies and our dreams. The profoundest, fiercest, and most intimate urges and feelings within us are our animal passions and instincts. The parade of animals that accompany us through this life is held up for review and appreciation in these delightful essays, all of which share a dedication to the understanding of human life and culture through the lens of psychoanalytic theory in its manifold diversity.'- Robert A. Paul, PhD, Candler Professor of Anthropology and Dean, Emory College

Salman Akhtar, MD, was born in India and completed his medical and psychiatric education there. Upon arriving in the USA in 1973, he repeated his psychiatric training at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and then obtained psychoanalytic training from the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. Currently, he is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has authored, edited or co-edited more than 300 publications including books on psychiatry and psychoanalysis and several collections of poetry. He is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Salman Akhtar received the Sigourney Award in 2012. Vamik D. Volkan is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, an Emeritus Training and Supervising Analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and the Senior Erik Erikson Scholar at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He is the president of the International Dialogue Initiative and a former president of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, and the American College of Psychoanalysts. He received the Sigmund Freud Award given by the city of Vienna in collaboration with the World Council of Psychotherapy, and in 2015 received the Sigourney Award, honouring achievements for the advancement of psychoanalysis.