Diagnosing America: cultural representation of mental disorders 4219-SD175
This course examines cultural representations of mental disorders. Starting our journey in the 1980s, we will look closely at selected works of American culture that deal with depression, bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, as well as neurodiversity, ADHD and autism. We will examine the diagnostic categories themselves, asking how they have evolved over time, but our primary focus will be on their cultural representations. Is the stigma around “madness” really gone? What is therapy culture - and on what grounds is it critiqued? How is the discourse around mental disorders affected by class, gender, and race? How does medicalization affect the experience of those diagnosed? What is biological and what is cultural in these diagnostic categories - and can we tell the two apart?
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student:
KNOWLEDGE:
- knows a number of works of US culture dealing with mental disorders;
- knows a number of theories related to the place of mental disorders in culture;
- is familiar with the concept of therapeutic culture and understands the controversies surrounding it;
SKILLS
- can critically analyze theoretical texts, paying attention to differences among scholarly approaches;
- can critically analyze historical documents with a strong ideological aspect;
- is able to prepare, formulate and present (in both oral and written form) a coherent analysis of an independently developed topic
COMPETENCES:
- is able to cooperate in a group;
- is open to conflicting readings of specific texts and differing visions of culture and society;
- is able to formulate and defend his/her opinion coherently, while learning and respecting other views.
Assessment criteria
1. Active participation in class and on Kampus forum (20%)
2. Two group presentations (20%)
3. Final paper (6-8 pages) (30%)
4. Final tests and short tests during semester (30%)
GRADING:
5! = 96
5 = 92.5
4+ = 87.5
4 = 80
3+ = 75
3 = 60
Bibliography
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Rainman (1988)
Girl Interrupted (1999)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Michael Clayton (2007)
Charlie (Perks of Being a Wallflower) (2012)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Succession, HBO
Rachel Aviv, Strangers to Ourselves
Merri Lisa Johnson, Girl in Need of a Tourniquet: Memoir of a Borderline Personality
Ellen Forney, Marbles
Christpher Lasch, Culture of Narcissism
Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young & Depressed In America
Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Andrew Solomon, Anatomy of Melancholy
David Foster Wallace, The Depressed Person
Philip Cushman, Constructing the Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of Psychotherapy.
Robert Whitaker, Mad in America & Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Ole Jacob Madsen, The Therapeutic Turn. How Psychology Altered Western Culture. London: Routledge
Roger Foster, The Therapeutic Spirit of Neoliberalism
Ussher, J. M., A critical feminist analysis of madness : pathologising femininity through psychiatric discourse.
Simon Cross, Mediating Madness, Mental Distress and Cultural Representation
Julia Miele Rodas, Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe
J. Stephens, Dana Byrd, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Reviewing the Neurocognitive Characteristics of an American Epidemic
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: