Insane Asylum

his paper follows the lives of three generations of a Buckland, Massachusetts family, from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The mental illness of one family member, Josiah Spaulding, imprisoned for 57 years in a cage in his parent's and later his sister's home, profoundly affected the experience of his niece Mary Howes, who lived with her caged Uncle for her entire childhood. Mary was one of the first women to graduate from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and took a teaching position in the antebellum south, opening some of the first colleges for women in Alabama. She later became an abolitionist and mental health reformer, along with her son, Dr. Frederick Goddard. The story of Mary's caged uncle intertwined through her whole life. Based on three years of private archival research, this paper contains the previously unheard, but profound story of nineteenth century mental illness and the reform enacted by those lost to history.

The historian, Rodger Cooter, was correct when he wrote that, “historical interest in phrenology is almost as old as phrenology itself”.  However, the ways in which historians have treated phrenology has not always been consistent. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth-century phrenology was almost universally discredited as a science, and historians of phrenology tended to reflect this bias.  In spite of this, during the 1970s and 1980s historians started to steer away from portraying phrenology as a failed doctrine that was overcome by the inevitable progress of science, and began to focus on phrenology’s influential role in Victorian culture and popular science. In fact, ever since Steven Shapin’s monumental publication in 1975, the history of phrenology has been taken up by a hand-full of accomplished scholars in the history and sociology of science.  As a result, many quality books and articles have been published, and our understanding of the social contexts from which phrenology originated and evolved has been dramatically improved.  Now, after decades of discourse, most historians of science would agree with Erwin Ackerknecht that phrenology was “at least as influential in the first half of the nineteenth-century as psychoanalysis in the first half of the twentieth”.  Indeed, there can be little doubt that the social and scientific claims of phrenology were absorbed, and processed, by a host of scientific authorities during the nineteenth-century.
However, while most Anglo-American histories of phrenology have focused specifically on the reception and propagation of phrenology in Britain, there is scarce scholarship on those British intellectuals, who traveled to Europe to study with the originator of phrenology, Franz Joseph Gall, years before phrenology became a Victorian sensation. This paper breaks that convention by investigating the life and research of the Scottish alienist, Sir Alexander Morison. 
Morison’s life serves as a particularly useful point of departure for investigating the array of social and intellectual controversies surrounding phrenology in the early nineteenth-century. Indeed, Morison is a novelty as he is one of the few examples of a British alienist who studied with Gall years before phrenology found a supporting audience in Britain. He is also an example of a person who once embraced Gall’s doctrine, and then rejected it after it became attached to radical social politics.  For these reasons, Morison’s story provides historians with insights into the differences between Gall’s organology in France, and phrenology in Britain. As we will see, as an Evangelical medical doctor, Morison could tolerate Gall’s organology because it avoided metaphysical discourse, and did not overtly challenge his faith or social status. In Britain, however, Gall’s disciple, Johann Spurzheim, and his colleague, George Combe, propagated a phrenology that was full of theological and philosophical discourse that challenged Morison’s beliefs and social status. As a result, Morison eventually abandoned phrenology in favor of the study of physiognomy, which offered him a physical means of diagnosing the insane that did not challenge his religiously conservative world-view.
In order to fully understand the events that led to Morison’s eventual rejection of phrenology in favor of physiognomy, this paper is divided into three chapters.  The first chapter explores the origins of phrenology in eighteenth-century Vienna, and offers a comparison between Gall’ science and other versions of physiognomy at the time. Chapter two follows Gall to France and compares his teachings with the teachings of Morison’s other major French influence: the alienist, and physiognomist, Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol. Finally, the third chapter uses the information provided from the prior chapters to explain how Morison could both accept, and reject phrenology.

“Dünya olağanüstü bir yerdi. Delirtilecek sayısız insan onu bekliyordu.”

Kraliçeyi Kurtarmak ve Haritada Kaybolmak kitaplarıyla okurların gönlünü fetheden Vladimir Tumanov, ele avuca sığmayan bir çocuğun olağanüstü öyküsünü anlatıyor Böcek Çocuk’ta.

Küçük Gregor, bir sabah uyandığında kendini hamamböceğine dönüşmüş bulur. Haşarılıklarıyla ünlü Gregor, böceğe dönüştükten sonra yaşadığı şehrin kaderini değiştirmek için akılalmaz maceralara atılır. İlk iş olarak halkı haraca bağlayan Başkan Boşkan’ın karşısına dikilir. Neredeyse bir silgi büyüklüğündeki kahramanımız, acımasızlarla eğlenerek mücadele ederken, yakın arkadaşları Tarakanow kardeşler her hınzırlıkta onunla birliktedir elbette.

Kahkahanın ve heyecanın eksik olmadığı bu kitabın sırrı karakterlerinde saklı.

Joseph Kaa, Siggi Smund, Franz Samsa… Bakalım bu karakterlerin sırrını kim çözecek?

In this parody of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, a boy called Greggie-Boy Cafard wakes up one day to find that he has been transformed into a cockroach. This does not get him down; on the contrary, his new form inspires him to accomplish feats of valor with his two friends Chuckie and Lennie Karamazov. The threesome takes on their town's corrupt city council headed by the evil Mayor Meyer who takes bribes for every service and unleashes his police chief Donald Corleone on anyone who speaks up. The city council uses drugs in milk and subliminal messaging to force people to vote for them. All dissidents are put away into the Wahn Psychiatric Hospital under the care of Dr. Siggy Smund. Greggie-Boy and his friends drive all but two of the evil city councillors crazy — literally, so that these corrupt men end up in the Wahn Psychiatric Hospital. The final showdown occurs when Greggie-Boy the roach, Chuckie and Lennie are taken prisoner and whisked away to the Wahn Psychiatric Hospital by the horrid Franz Samsa — the city's hygiene inspector. He has the nasty habit of releasing cockroaches in restaurants and demanding a bribe in order to look the other way. The resolution is riveting, psychiatric and entomological. Greggie-Boy is about to be pinned and added to Franz Samsa's roach collection when...

In 1887, journalist Elizabeth Cochrane, using the penname Nellie Bly, went undercover for a mission to expose the dynamics of the Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum for The New York World, and following that the paper published her work Ten Days in a Mad-House. For this purpose Nelly Bly impersonated an insane woman, and even more interestingly a "crazy Cuban girl." Her narrative Ten Days in A Mad-House demonstrates the reception of the racialized insane immigrant body in late nineteenth century American society as well as in the institutions of the time. The text is analyzed by contextualizing it within the eugenic and biopolitical framework of the era, which denationalized the insane immigrant body, since their 'disposable' bodies were seen as nothing more than a burden on the capitalist structure of the United States. Foucault's ideas on biopolitics and the carceral system are applied to Bly's text to question further the institutional operations within this power system. Moreover, Agamben's theories on the bare life of the homo sacer is used to demonstrate how the insane bodies of immigrants are unfreed within the correctional system. In this article, the incarceration of the undesired immigrant is analyzed in relation to how Nelly Bly performed the biopolitics of insanity, and used the power of writing as she crossed color, class and social lines as a white, professional woman impersonating an insane, impoverished immigrant woman. 1887 senesinde Nellie Bly mahlasını kullanan gazeteci Elizabeth Cochrane, The New York World gazetesi adına Blackwell's Island Akıl Hastanesindeki dinamikleri ifşa etmek için gizli göreve gittikten sonra Ten Days in a Mad-House adlı yazısı gazetede basıldı. Bu amaçla akıl hastası bir kadın rolüne, daha da ilginci akıl hastası Kübalı bir kadın rolüne giren Bly'ın Ten Days in a Mad-House adlı anlatısı akıl hastası göçmen bedeninin 19. yüzyıl Amerikan toplumunda olduğu kadar dönemin çağdaş enstitülerinde de nasıl karşılandığını göstermektedir. Metin, 'gözden çıkarılabilir' akıl hastası göçmen bedenin Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nin kapitalist yapısına bir yük olarak görünmesinden dolayı ırk ıslahı, biyopolitika ve göçmen bedenin ulussuzlaştırılması gibi temel kavramlar ile birlikte incelenmektedir. Foucault'nun biyopolitika ve ıslah sisteminin işleyişleri üzerine kirleri, erk sistemi içerisindeki kurumsal işleyişleri daha da sorgulamak için Bly'ın metnine uygulanmaktadır. Buna ek olarak Agamben'in homo sacer (kutsal insan)'in çıplak hayatı hakkındaki savları akıl hastası göçmenin özgürlüğünün ıslah sisteminde nasıl elinden alındığını göstermek için kullanılmaktadır. Bu makalede istenmeyen göçmenin hapsedilişi, Nelly Bly'ın deliliği biyopolitik bir performans olarak nasıl sergilediği ve akıl hastası göçmen bir kadını canlandıran beyaz bir kadın olarak hem ırksal hem de sosyal sınırları nasıl geçtiğiyle ilişkili olarak incelenmektedir.

When one thinks of the archetypical hero versus villain in the world of comics, Batman and The Joker often come to mind. They connect to the concept of the eternal battle between oppositions. Choosing a side, however, is relative. Heroes can look like villains through the eyes of a hero’s villain. It is an argument that The Joker uses to challenge Batman, in Arkham Asylum. He is tricked into accepting The Joker’s invitation to the Feast of Fools, which was a theatrical event that dates as far back as the Middle Ages. Its contents usually revolved around social and moral criticisms of their time. The fact that an accusation full of reason comes from the mouth of a madman, is an attempt to obscure its contents through comical absurdity. According to Foucault, by the end of the Middle Ages, European literature had stigmatized the madman as a satirical figure by attributing to him the lack of reason to the rest of his repertoire, which consisted of poverty, crime, and ugliness. By reducing the rejects of society to the point of comical absurdity, it often helped reinforce the position of reason, but sometimes it backfires. The absurd claim of the insane is actually a useful tool in philosophical logic. A reductio ad absurdum is a process of refutation on grounds that an absurdity will follow the entailment if we were to accept a certain claim. Morrison claims that Batman would only be mentally unstable if he did not wear a costume and channeled his pain through violence, but so does The Joker, and he is labeled insane. The whole structure rests on the hidden premise that the rich are superior to the poor, who are monsterized like the fool is ridiculed. Nietzsche himself thought that if a person was ugly, they were automatically also criminals. What a reader is subjected to, in the Batverse, is a class warfare between the rich and the poor, authority and the whistleblower, or the wolves and the sheep. There is a tacit agreement at play, and it is The Joker who engages the reader to question that agreement.

Eve teasing, the exact manifestation of a gender biased patriarchal society, treats women as nothing more than a sex object who are used for sexual pleasure and enjoyment of the dominant sections of society, the men. While women in general have been victims of eve teasing, women from the marginalized groups like Dalits, slum dwellers, and the mentally imbalanced insane are mostly exposed to the divulgence of varied forms of eve teasing due to the nature of work they do which basically rests on wage earning, house maids, waste picking or begging. Such a ludicrous form of enjoyment is not concentrated to the women of a particular age group rather women across all age groups are victimized by such acts with varying magnitude and dimensions. In this regard, experiences of women from the age group of 13 to 35 have been shared. This paper is the outcome of personal (unstructured) and focused group interviews accompanied by keen observation of the researcher, conducted from 8/11/2014 to 29/11/2014 (twenty one days). For the work, areas of Silchar, (the main town of Cachar) where the marginalized women live, work and are generally found have been selected for the purpose of collecting primary data. Attempt has been made to bring forth the nature of eve teasing, by analyzing some of the experiences of women belonging to the marginalized groups in the district of Cachar. Certain measures as a response to minimize extent of eve teasing have also been suggested, because a total eradication of such an act is not possible in a day that require to go under a series of reform  measures.

The fact that the specific topic of “Madness and Creativity” is taught as a course in at least two universities in the U.S.,  suggests that the “twin” themes, whether or not there is a causal link between them, are compelling subjects for discussion in a world where the sciences and the humanities are attempting to bridge fields of learning. The question as to whether “insane” people are more creative than their sane counterparts has been at the heart of theories and therapies since their inception, from Philippe Pinel, the father of modern psychiatry, to clinicians and thinkers like Hans Prinzhorn and R. D. Laing. Because critical perceptions of derangement or mental instability among artists have, chronologically speaking, been far in advance of medical science, the attempt at a rapprochement between the disciplines might enable a more fruitful discussion to evolve. This talk is offered on the way clinical space affects creativity and madness will address resistances among doctors to regard literature and the other arts, such as architecture, as sources of material on mental disorder which can carry the diagnostic weight of their own disciplines.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to will be able to:
• Explain historical developments in asylum architecture that bear upon mental health care outcomes.
• Compare case studies in psychiatric space as rethought by patients suffering from severe mental illness.
• Discuss the importance of space for creativity.

SPEAKERS: Michael Uebel, PhD, LCSW

FORMAT: Didactic lecture enhanced by PowerPoint presentation

ABSTRACT: This presentation looks at how the space of the 19th- and 20th-century asylum shapes—and unshapes—the artistic creativity of institutionalized psychotic and neurasthenic patients.  The architecture of the asylums was considered integral and essential to curing “madness,” and this presentation will examine how the built environment contributed to the structures and themes of two institutionalized patients, Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) and Martin Ramirez (1895-1963). While focusing on the work of Wölfli and Ramirez, other drawings and paintings from psychotic artists will be shown as points of comparison and to support a fuller look at the principal themes emerging: how the divisions between sanity/insanity, freedom/confinement, privacy/the public, and creativity/destruction are negotiated by patients, their treating clinicians, and the architects of the environment in which they lived.

References:
Spoerri, E. (Ed.) (1997). Adolf Wolfli: Draughtsman, writer, poet, composer. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Topp, L., Moran, J. E., & Andrews, J. (Eds.) (2007). Madness, architecture and the built environment: Psychiatric spaces in historical context. New York: Routledge.
Yanni, C. (2007). The Architecture of madness: Insane asylums in the United States. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

This article uses two examples from US history – competency hearings and asylum labor from Wisconsin in the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century United States – to examine how ability, labor, and citizenship ideologies are enforced and created. Both are sites in which individuals are assumed to lack ability and labor is a tool of assessment and cure. I argue that central to both citizenship and ability were historically defined standards for the self-management of labor and its economic results. Criteria for the self-management of labor reflected and reinforced social hierarchies.

America's best known tragedian (and the former room-mate of John Wilkes Booth) died in 1885, several years before the wax cylinder appeared; this chronology, however, was no apparent bar to the survival of his voice from the Insane Asylum in which he partly passed his final days (the site of Columbia's new campus). An investigation into this strange chapter of Shakespearean psycho-drama reveals its share of curiosities and a possible runner-up in the field of bizarre recitation that has completely gone un-noticed.

Often social reform is thought of in a linear model; that one event occurs and leads to another in a mechanism of continuous progression not unlike steps of assembly on a factory line. The march of progress is referenced in articles and books about American history and education as if there were a collective understanding that developed and unfolded in a perpetual march towards a utopian goal. However, history is much more complex than that paradigm allows. During the turbulent American nineteenth century, society began to dramatically change as oppressed and marginalized groups of people and their allies fought for their rights. Evidenced in the life of Mary Howes Goddard of Buckland, Massachusetts, born 1823, is the ineluctable nature that characterized reform and oppression during this era. Mary is not a famous historic figure, but her life followed a trajectory through women’s rights, slavery and abolition, and mental health and disability reform which can serve as a model in illustrating the overlapping nature of social change, and how different factions of marginalization serve to inform and influence one another, something that is integral to the process of understanding and ending oppression. Central to all of it is the theme of education.