Pasquale S. Toscano // Madness is therefore defined to be a vehement dotage, or raving without a fever, far more violent than melancholy, full of anger and clamour, horrible looks, actions, gestures, troubling the patients with far greater vehemency both of body and mind, without all fear and sorrow, with such impetuous force and boldness…
Tag: mental illness
Brave New World: Cyberpunk 2077’s novel depiction of mental illness
Steve Server // By now, many have heard of Cyberpunk 2077, even those not normally within the gamer-orbit. The early rollout of the game has been plagued by game-breaking glitches and unexpectedly poor graphics and performance. Beyond the controversial rollout—and underneath the typical blood and guts associated with violent role-playing games—Cyberpunk 2077 has something unique to say about mental…
‘Laughing At’: The Exploitation of Disability as Comedic Entertainment in Pre-Industrial Europe
James Belarde // “They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.” –Nathaniel Lee, 17th century dramatist, after being committed to Bethlem Hospital In late June 1340, the members of the French royal court found themselves in a tricky situation. France’s navy had just been decimated in the Battle…
The Beast Within: Mental Illness in Arto Paasilinna’s The Howling Miller
Avril Tynan // Throughout the nineteenth century, degeneration theory associated certain behaviours and physical and psychological pathologies with a pseudo-Darwinian atavism of primitive traits and characteristics. One need only think of Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series, and particularly his 1890 novel La bête humaine (The Beast in Man or The Beast Within), to note the parallels…
Compelling Associations: Kay Redfield Jamison on the Artistic Temperament in Manic-Depressive Illness
Amala Poli // One of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive illness in the world [1], Kay Redfield Jamison in Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, attempts to address a compelling association between artistic and manic-depressive temperaments through a literary, biographical, and scientific argument (5). Since the late eighteenth century, the glamorization of certain types…
(Un)fashionable Illness
Lesley Thulin // When VICE Magazine published a fashion spread that depicted reenactments of famous women writers’ suicides in its 2013 Women in Fiction issue, it was met with outrage. Some critics described “Last Words” as “almost breathtakingly tasteless,” while others chalked it up to “slouching indifference and sloppiness.” VICE’s own last words on the…
Images of an Imagined Future: Photographing Deinstitutionalization in a Developing World
David Robertson // In the 1950s, the World Health Organization (WHO) engaged in a global effort to improve the treatment of institutionalized psychiatric patients. In the newly coined “developing nations” this support tended to target those in which a sizeable psychiatric infrastructure was already in place, including postcolonial nations like India and the Philippines. A…
Inhabiting Inner Worlds: Narrative Threads in ‘Mrs Dalloway’
Amala Poli // Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway is a modernist text that captures the preoccupations of Woolf’s time. It also draws a timeless mindscape of an individual suffering from mental illness: the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith. This article explores some strands specific to the character and the texts that discuss Woolf’s work on…
Looking Inward: How Treating my Depression Enhanced my Creative Approach to Comedy
James Belarde// “‘What makes the desert beautiful,’ the little prince said, ‘is that it hides a well somewhere…’” -Antoine de Saint Exupéry “Hi, I’m James! I’m three. My dad’s name is James too! This is my mom, but her name is Zena. This is my baby brother. We’re fifteen apart. We live by –” Thus…
The Indian Mental Healthcare Act 2017: A Challenging Horizon
Amala Poli // In 2017, India’s Parliament passed a new Mental Healthcare Act that sought to address several gaps and problems in the previous act of 1987. While marking a significant moment in Indian history by attempting to prioritize patients’ rights and consent, the new act raises new concerns. Can the status quo be transformed through…
