Jennifer Radden: Sanity and Madness

PHILOSOPHY 265 SANITY AND MADNESS
SPRING 2007
INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Radden
OFFICE: W/5/18 TEL: 287-6546
OFFICE HOURS: Weds. 11-1.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course we look at a number of questions about mental disorder or ‘madness’ - what sort of affliction or condition it is supposed to be; what it is like as an experience; how it should be described and regarded; how it has been portrayed pictorially in Western history; therapeutic and curative responses to it; and what special treatment - if any - its sufferers deserve. Not all the answers its possible to give to such questions are philosophical, theoretical, or ethical ones. But many are, and these philosophical matters are our focus throughout the course.
For example, mental disorder, madness, and also mental health and sanity, are – at least in part - cultural products. As such they invite ‘deconstruction’ to reveal their normative character and presuppositions, and that deconstruction will be the task of some of our discussions.
Systematic observation of mental disorder is undertaken here through the study of autobiographical narratives, images from art and film, case records and documents from the history of medicine, as well as medical and scientific writing, and this observation is interpreted through theories and theoretical models. Students are introduced to the institutions, practices and principles that frame our understanding of mental disorder. Particular attention will be paid to the claims of the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s and 1970s, to feminist analysis of the relation between madness and gender, to the influential writing of Michel Foucault and to recent cultural constructionist analyses of mental disorder.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
There will be a short written assignment of 3-4 pages (25% of the grade), a longer essay of 5-6 pages [suitable for inclusion in a Writing Proficiency Requirement portfolio] (25%), and a final exam in the regularly scheduled exam period (50%). Ungraded written assignments from group discussion exercises will also be required, and will form the basis of some of the final exam. Attendance is required, and those missing five or more classes for whatever reason will be penalized.

Communicating with Students: I will do this via an email list using your UMB accounts. So if you actually have another eddress, make sure you arrange to get messages from the UMB account forwarded to the one you look at regularly.
TEXTS
A customized reading packet is available at the UMB Bookstore. In addition, you will need: Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (widely available on the internet); Out of Her Mind edited by Shannonhouse; Laing’s The Divided Self (this is also in the library’s electronic holdings); Foucault’s Madness and Civilization (also in the library’s electronic holdings); Greenhaven Press Mental Illness, Healy’s Anti-depressant Era and Jamison’s Night Falls Fast. Copies of several of these will be available at the library Reserve Desk for those preferring to xerox the relevant sections.

DETAILED SYLLABUS AND READING GUIDE
(Readings should be completed by the dates indicated. Material in the reading packet is marked with an asterisk (*).)

SECTION ONE: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MENTAL DISTURBANCE
Jan 30: Introductory
Feb 1: Gilman’s madness [READING The Yellow Wallpaper]
Feb 6: group discussion
Feb 8: more first hand accounts [READING: Letters of Zelda Fitzgerald; excerpts from Faces in the Water; excerpts from Diary of a Schizophrenic Girl; excerpts from The Bell Jar; excerpts from Girl Interrupted. All these are in Shannonhouse (editor) Out Of Her Mind]
Feb 13: first person accounts on film
Feb 15: group discussion
Feb 20: the phenomenological approach [READING: Jaspers from General Psychopathology*] First assignment due
Feb 22: overview of this section

SECTION TWO: IMAGES OF MADNESS
Feb 27: life imitating art [READING: Gilman Seeing the Insane Preface and Part 1 (Icons of Madness).*]
Mar 1: the root metaphors of madness [READING: Gilman Seeing the Insane Part 2 (Images of Madness)*]
Mar 6: overview of this section
Mar 8: group discussion

SECTION THREE: ANTI-PSYCHIATRY
Mar 13: anti-psychiatry as a social movement [READING Torrey and Burnim in Mental Illness]
Mar 15: anti-psychiatry as new approaches to treatment
[ READING: Laing, The Divided Self, chapters 1-3,8,11]

S P R I N G B R E A K

Mar 27: anti-psychiatry as philosophical thesis [READING:
Clinton&Hyman, Bobgan&Bobgan, and Caplan in Mental Illness; Szasz ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’* ]
Mar 29: Foucault [READING: Foucault, Madness and Civilization Preface, chaps 2-3]
April 3: Foucault continued [READING: Foucault, chapters 8,9 and Conclusion]
April 5: group discussion
April 10: alternative causes [READING: Showalter, Hystories*]
April 12: alternative causes [READING: Horwitz, Creating Mental Illness *]
April 17: group discussion
April 19: overview of Section Three

SECTION FOUR: SUICIDE AS MENTAL DISORDER
April 24,26: questions about suicide [READING: Jamison Night Falls Fast]
May 1: group discussion

SECTION FIVE: THE ANTI-DEPRESSANT ERA
May 3,8 : mental health treatments [ READING: Introduction, Chaps 1,4 Mental Illness]
May 10: psychopharmacology [ READING: Healy, The Antidepressant Era ] Second essay due
May 15: Exam review