Madness and Civilization. Chapter 1 Stultifera Navis Challenge to historiography Did such ships exist? Significance to argument of text? Bosch -

Madness and Civilization

Chapter 1 Stultifera Navis

Challenge to historiography Did such ships exist? Significance to argument of

text?

Bosch - The Ship of Fools

Bicetre

Chapter 2: The Great Confinement

Meaning of madness, treatment of mad shifts.

Madness is related to idleness. Thus, madness becomes an

economic and moral issue. Thus it requires punishment.Punishment is informed by

opportunities for economic exploitation/advantage, moral condemnation, and religious ideas (the mad are cast as the Fallen)

Introduction of morality via economic issues has lasting affects on treatment of mad and the relationship between mad and society.

Classical Period Begins

Salpetriere

Chapter 3: The Insane

Enclosing of people mirrors enclosure of land

Mad lack what is most human to classical mind – reason

Thus can be treated as animals

Chapter 4: Passion and Delirium

M. Foucault

The mad often demonstrate unique use of language and logic which has the potential to:test boundaries of language and logic.distort language and logic in unique ways. express its own unique logic and truth.

Madness, logic, and language.

Chapter 5: Aspects of Madness

Transition from moral to medical

Humors and common sense

Immersion

Chapter 6: Doctors and Patients

Nonetheless, new approach is still rooted in religious notions of punishment and redemption. Cure focuses on the bodies of the mad. Water cure recalls baptism.Other cures: deliberately inflected skin disease, bleedings, baths, and purges, theatrical representation.

Shift towards more humane, scientific approach to treatment.

Marquis De Sade

Chapter 7: The Great Fear

Foucault returns to literary analysis

18th Century fear of contamination

Diderot, DeSade, Holderlin, Nerval, Nietzsche

Goya – “The Sleep of Reason

Chapter 8: The New Division

Physicians, theorists proposeconfinement be reduced to those who

are a danger to themselves and society.relocation of patients from jails to

hospitalsHowever, hospitals to treat the mad do

not yet exist.

Early 19th century, calls for reforms.

Chapter 9: The Birth of the Asylum

Techniques/practices of early psychiatric reformers: Tuke, Pinel

Descriptions contrast with perceived message of book

Foucault and “antipsychiatry”

Goya – “The Madhouse”

Concluding Chapter and Beyond:

The relationship between art and madness

The art of the mentally ill: Outsider Art, Intuitive Art, Art Brut

Often demonstrates an unawareness of conventional notions of technique and aesthetics.

Exists outside of lineage, contemporary community

Reflects unique perspective, condition of artist

Willem Van Genk 1

Willem Van Genk 2

Wolfli 1

Wolfli 2

Francis Palanc

Baya

Gaston Teuscher

Madge Gill

Scottie Wilson

Carlo 1

Carlo 2

Madness, transgression, and art- Transgression: Exploring the boundaries of conventional notions of

morality and truth.

- Examples in literature: Bataille, Genet, Artaud, etc.

- Resonates with Foucault:Foucault writes: “madness has become mans possibility for

abolishing both man and the world….it is the last recourse: the end and beginning of everything…it is the ambiguity of chaos and the apocalypse” (F 281).

Foucault and Artaud:- Foucault’s thoughts on madness as ‘the end and beginning of everything’ resonate with Artaud’s writing, particularly his essay, “No More Masterpieces,” in which Artaud declares:

- Reverence for the past works of art serves to imprison the art of today and the art to come. - The phenomena of masterpieces alienates art from the public via its ‘superstitious’ reverence for texts. - If the public finds a given masterpiece irrelevant and incomprehensible, it is not the fault of the public, but the fault of the work itself and system in which such works are defied.

Both Foucault and Artaud see conventional notions of psychology as an obstruction to the potential of art and creativity.

-Artaud holds psychology accountable for “..working relentlessly to reduce the unknown to the known,” (Artaud 77).

- Artaud declares theater must go beyond psychological concerns such as woes over social careerism, money and love.

Both Foucault and Artaud see the dislocating experience of madness as potentially productive, capable of yielding unique insights. Artaud seeks an art which mirrors the experience of madness.

- Artaud proposes a theater which confronts its audience in visceral and disorientating way, a theater which he likens to lava in a volcanic explosion.

Madness as inspiration: an example

Rafael Alberti “Concerning the Angels” - Background:

Among the “generation of 27” Written during a depressive episode brought on by a

failed love affair and the suicide of a friend.

- Alberti’s description of the writing process

- Alberti discusses ways in which his mental state dictated his writing style and process

Eviction Evil or good angels, I don’t know which,hurled you into my soul. Lonely,without furniture or sleeping space,vacant. Intrepidly, the wind woundsthe walls,the finest panes of glass. Dampness. Chains. Cries.Wind guests. I ask you:when you leave the house,tell mewhich evil, which cruel angelswill want to rent it again? Tell me.   

From “Concerning the Angels,” by Rafael Alberti.

Concluding Thoughts

How does Foucault’s Madness and Civilization apply to Library Science?

Speaks to nature of classification in general, specifically:

The potential for cultural perspective and/or cultural bias to inform the ways in which knowledge or information is classified, structured, limited, and interacted with.