On July 19, 1938, Salvatore Dalí — a longtime admirer of Sigmund Freud — finally met his idol, thanks to writer Stefan Zweig. Hoping to convince Freud of the value of his “paranoid-critical method,” Dalí sought recognition for a creative approach grounded in psychoanalytic theory. He brought with him his latest painting, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, as well as an article he had published on paranoia, which he especially hoped would earn the respect of the elderly Freud.

The encounter, however, did not unfold as Dalí had imagined. It also marked what Zweig later described in his memoir The World of Yesterday as the end of a liberal cultural order — an order whose collapse would soon give way to WWII.

This event explores the historic 1938 meeting between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud, offering alumni an understanding of how their encounter signaled the collapse of a liberal cultural order and the onset of of WWII.