The Ideal, the Real and the Beauty of the Beast: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Job 39-41
Karin Elisabeth Hakalax
uten stilling
- karin.hakalax@vid.no
Prosjektperiode
august 2018–juli 2021
Veiledere
- Tina Dykesteen Nilsen, VID
- Marta Høyland Lavik, VID
About the project
The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to explore the ego of an Ancient Near Eastern male, the patriarch Job. He is interpreted as tormented by unresolved conflicts between the divine Ideal, the delusional ego-ideal and the reality of humbling human imperfections and limitations. The researcher is exploring how the oedipal crisis, the primal scene, sibling rivalry and other psychic events are embodied in the imagery of Job 39-41. The ostrich and horse are seen as a parental couple and the encounter with the beasts Behemoth and Leviathan as a sublime confrontation with the primal scene. Biblical, literary and psychoanalytic scholarship intersect in this study. The text is read through a psychoanalytic lens, and a method akin to Freudian dream analysis is used and insights by Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and John Steiner are employed. The whole book is interpreted as polyvalent, ironic, comic and subversive.
Educational background
Master's degree in Theology, School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, spring 2015.
Research group