Biography

Andreas Mayer is CNRS Senior Research Professor at the EHESS in Paris. His research focuses on the history of the human sciences and their relations to literature and the arts. He is the author of several monographs on the history of psychoanalysis, notably Dreaming by the Book. ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ and the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (with L. Marinelli, Other Press, 2003), and Sites of the Unconscious. Hypnosis and the Emergence of the Psychoanalytic Setting (Chicago UP, 2013). His latest monograph is The Science of Walking. Investigations into Locomotion in the Long Nineteenth Century (Chicago UP, 2020). Among other projects, he is currently publishing a new French and German annontated edition of Balzac’s ‘Analytical Studies’.

Project Summary

This project is linked to Mayer's ongoing research on Balzac’s The Human Comedy. In our understanding, this monumental work of interconnected novels, stories and essays provides an essential key to French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–48). While this holds true for the majority of the first part which present ‘studies of manners in the 19th Century’, the second and third parts consist of ‘philosophical and analytical studies’’ offering important reflections on their roots in the political and religious conflicts of the 16th century.  Among these works, Balzac’s book-length study on Catherine de' Medici (Sur Catherine de Médicis, begun in the late 1820s and finished in 1842) stands out, both for its attempt to destroy the myth of the ‘wicked Italian Queen’ of France, and its singular combination of history and fiction. During his stay, Mayer intends to draw out the importance of Balzac’s vision of Renaissance politics, religion, and science for his own analysis of 19th century French society, especially with regard to the role of alchemy and astrology.