Studienausgabe

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STUDIENAUSGABE

The Studienausgabe, a critical edition of Freud's work comprised of ten numbered volumes and a supplementary volume (Ergänzungsband ), is the sole German-language edition offering a broad selection of the writings accompanied by an impressive scholarly apparatus.

Edited by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, and James Strachey, Volumes 1-10 were published by S. Fischer Verlag between 1969 and 1975. The supplement (Schriften zur Behandlungstechnik ), co-edited by Ilse Grubrich-Simitis, which added Freud's writings on psychoanalytic technique, appeared in 1975. On the fiftieth anniversary of Freud's death, in 1989, the Studienausgabe were reissued in an updated and revised version. Simultaneously, the Sigmund Freud—Konkordanz und Gesamtbibliographie, originally compiled by Ingeborg Meyer-Palmedo and already associated with theStudienausgabe in 1975, was radically reworked, with the assistance of Gerhard Fichtner, and published under the title Freud-Bibliographie mit Werkonkordanz as a companion to the revised Studienausgabe. (A new, corrected edition of the Freud-Bibliographie appeared in 1999.)

The ten volumes of the Studienausgabe are arranged thematically. Some contain a single work, as in the case of Volume 1, the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, or Volume 2, The Interpretation of Dreams, while those which collect several texts on a single subject are arranged chronologically. The editorial commentary consists essentially, with a few additions, of a translation of James Strachey's critical apparatus for the Standard Edition. Strachey, who had participated actively in the planning of the Studienausgabe, died in 1967, so it fell to his collaborator Angela Richards to undertake the better part of the editing, with constant assistance from Ilse Grubrich-Simitis and Ingeborg Meyer-Palmedo.

All volumes of the Studienausgabe are supplied with substantial bibliographies and detailed indexes to help researchers, teachers, and students. Freud's numerous revisions in successive editions of his writings, especially in such major works as The Interpretation of Dreams or the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, are clearly identified and dated. More than two-thirds of the Freudian texts assembled in the Standard Edition are to be found in the Studienausgabe.

When Freud went into exile in London in 1938, his projects with respect to publishing his work went with him. James Strachey and his group of collaborators then proceeded to build up an editorial culture around their projected Standard Edition which had no equivalent in Austria or in the Federal Republic of Germany of the 1960s. The paradoxical result is that the first, and up to now the only critical edition of Freud's work in German relies for the most part on the work of English-speaking editors.

In conclusion, it may be fairly said that after the brutal stop put by the Nazis to the influence of Freud's work in the German-speaking countries, the Studienausgabe have effectively promoted it, not only among specialists but also among general readers.

Ilse Grubrich-Simitis

See also : Gesammelte Werke ; Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud .