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HIST103 Syll Fall 2010
HIST103 Syll Fall 2010
HISTORY 103
“Madness is deceptive” (1669). This is an illustration from Der Abentheuerliche Simplicissimus, Teutsch (The Adventurous
Simplicissimus) written by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621-1676). The novel, based on Grimmelshausen’s own
life, chronicles the development of a child against the backdrop of the brutal Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).
Course Description
More than perhaps any other set of human afflictions, the phenomena that have gone under the names of
“madness,” “insanity,” “lunacy,” and “mental illness” have historically provoked a wide
variety of often contradictory reactions. Those who have been in the throes of “madness”
have described experiences ranging from an ecstatic sense of holiness to being beset by
undeniable impulses to feelings of unending despair. Observers have sought explanations for
the behavior of “touched” and “crazy” individuals by invoking such things as sin, destiny,
heredity, moral degeneracy, upbringing, trauma, fatigue, and body chemistry. Those
afflicted have been admired, pitied, mocked, hidden from public view, canonized,
imprisoned, restrained, operated on, sterilized, hospitalized, killed, counseled, analyzed, and
medicated. Why?
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Course Information
Location and Time: M+W 11:15 pm-12:05 pm (112 Walker) + Friday discussion sections
Office Phone: 865-9951
Office: 212 Weaver
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 1:30-3 pm + by appointment
Email: gae2@psu.edu (I check my mail frequently during the day – the best way to reach
me)
Teaching Assistants: Bill Cossen (wsc5037@psu.edu) and Rebekah Harris
(reh5169@psu.edu)
Required Texts
Edward Shorter, History of Psychiatry from the Era of the Asylum to the Age of
Prozac (John Wiley and Sons, 1998)
Greg Eghigian, ed., From Madness to Mental Health: Psychiatric Disorder and
its Treatment in Western Civilization (Rutgers University Press, 2010)
The books are on sale at the University Bookstore.
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SCHEDULE
WEEK V.
Sep 20 Shorter, History of Psychiatry, 1-32
FILM: Madness of King George (UK, 1995)
Sep 22 Madness of King George continued
Sep 24 EXAM 1
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WEEK VI. The Asylum
Sep 27 Shorter, History, 33-68
Limerick District Lunatic Asylum, Report of the Limerick District
Lunatic Asylum for the Year Ending December 31st, 1866 (1867),
FMMH, 143-155
Sep 29 Great Britain, Office of Superintendent Government, Annual Report of
the Insane Asylums in Bengal for the Year 1867 (1868), FMMH,
155-162
Oct 1 The Opal: A Monthly Periodical of the State Lunatic Asylum, Devoted
to Usefulness, Edited by the Patients of the Utica State Lunatic
Asylum (1855-1860), FMMH, 134-143
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III. THE MILITANT AGE
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WEEK XIV. …to Social Psychiatry
Nov 29 Records in the Case of Pyotr Grigorenko (1969-1970), FMMH, 317-329
World Psychiatric Association, “Declaration of Hawaii” (1977), FMMH,
329-332.
Dec 1 Franco Basaglia (1924-1980), “The Problem of the Incident” (1968),
FMMH, 352-357
Dec 3 Great Britain Department of Health and Social Security, “Better Services
for the Mentally Ill” (1975), FMMH, 357-368