A Leap of Faith into Moses: Freud’s Invitation to Evenly Suspended Attention

Abstract

This chapter argues that Moses and Monotheism invites its readers to approach it in a state of “evenly-suspended attention,” the mindset that Freud recommends his colleagues practice in the therapeutic scene. This method of reading is contrasted with the prominent one in the discipline of literature, namely, close reading. Developed by the Anglo-American New Critics around the time of Moses’ publication, close reading depends on what Freud terms “deliberate attention.” This chapter further demonstrates that reading Moses in a state of evenly-suspended attention is understood by Freud to require an act of faith in one’s unconscious or internal alterity. It concludes with a call for a reevaluation of what a Freudian or psychoanalytic reading is typically understood to mean in the humanities. That is, while Freud is conventionally thought of as the optimal close reader, Moses suggests otherwise.