Introducing Sebastiano Timpanaro

[Luciano Dondero <DOND001@xxxxxx>]

I would like to draw the attention of the comrades and friends of the
Marxism list on the works of Italian Marxist Sebastiano Timpanaro. In
particular, I will make reference to materials that have been published in
English.
The value of his contribution will hopefully be understandable once some of
this material is brought into the current discussions on various aspects of
Western, contemporary Marxism.
 (1) " On Materialism", published in 1975 by New Left Books (London),
consists of the 1970 Foreword, of an introduction to the English edition,
and of five texts written between 1966 and 1973: Considerations on
Materialism; Praxis and Materialism; Engels, Materialism and 'Free Will';
Structuralism and its Successors; Karl Korsch and Lenin's Philosophy.
(2) "The Freudian Slip. Psychoanalysis and Textual Criticism", originally
published in 1974 (1976 in English), consists of 12 chapters: Preliminary
Remarks; Freudian and Textual Critics: an Overdue Encounter; Pedestrian (but
True) Explanation of an Incomplete Quotation; Dido, San Gennaro and the
Sprectre of an Unwanted Pregnancy; Love and Death at Orvieto and in
Bosnia-Herzegovina; 'Abstract' Science and 'Concrete' Magic; The Slips of
the Good Citizens of Vienna; Freudian Slip and Forced Freudianization; Slip
and Error, Amnesia and Forgetting; Some Provisional Conclusions; Postscript.
Here is the short bio notice (by NLB) in the jacket of (2):
"Sebastiano Timpanaro was born in Parma in 1923. He studied classical
philology at the University of Florence, and thereafter specialised in Latin
and Greek textual criticism. From 1945 to 1964 he was a member of the left
of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI); from 1964 to 1972 of its successor
organisation, the PSIUP [in fact a left-wing split from the PSI, (LD)]; and
today is a militant in the recently formed PUPC, established by former
socialists and communists. In 1965, Timpanaro published an important study
of 19th century culture in Italy, *Classicismo e Illuminismo nell'Ottocento
Italiano*, which included an influential new evaluation of the poet
Leopardi. His major philosophical work, *On Materialism*, was published by
NLB in 1976".
(3) "Freud's 'Roman Phobia'", an essay, was published by New Left Review in
1984 (sorry, don't know the issue no.)
A review of (1) was published by the Healyite WRP's Labour Review issue no.5
in October 1977, and from this I will post large excerpts next, as a good
summary of the book.
Ciao,
Luciano



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