Developments in mental health activism pose a radical challenge to psychiatric and societal understandings of madness. Mad Pride and mad-positive activism reject the language of mental 'illness' and 'disorder' and demand recognition of madness as grounds for identity. This book examines and responds to the claims and demands of Mad activism.

Madness is a complex and contested term. Through time and across cultures it has acquired many formulations: for some, madness is synonymous with unreason and violence, for others with creativity and subversion, elsewhere it is associated with spirits and spirituality. Among the different formulations, there is one in particular that has taken hold so deeply and systematically that it has become the default view in many communities around the world: the idea that madness is a disorder of the mind. Contemporary developments in mental health activism pose a radical challenge to psychiatric and societal understandings of madness. Mad Pride and mad-positive activism reject the language of mental 'illness' and 'disorder', reclaim the term 'mad', and reverse its negative connotations. Activists seek cultural change in the way madness is viewed, and demand recognition of madness as grounds for identity. But can madness constitute such grounds? Is it possible to reconcile delusions, passivity phenomena, and the discontinuity of self often seen in mental health conditions with the requirements for identity formation presupposed by the theory of recognition? How should society respond? Guided by these questions, this book is the first comprehensive philosophical examination of the claims and demands of Mad activism. Locating itself in the philosophy of psychiatry, Mad studies, and activist literatures, the book develops a rich theoretical framework for understanding, justifying, and responding to Mad activism's demand for recognition.

"The scope of this book is daunting, ranging from madness in the ancient Greco-Roman world, to Christianized concepts of medieval folly, through the writings of early modern authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Descartes, and on to German Romantic philosophy, fin de siecle French poetry, and Freud . . . Artaud, Duras, and Plath."-Isis"This provocative and closely argued work will reward many readers."-ChoiceIn Revels in Madness, Allen Thiher surveys a remarkable range of writers as he shows how conceptions of madness in literature have reflected the cultural assumptions of their era, and emphasizes the transition from classical to modern theories of madness-a transition that began at the end of the Enlightenment and culminates in recent women's writing that challenges the postmodern understanding of madness as a fall from language or as a dysfunction of culture.

In this volume a number of British psychoanalysts introduce us to psychoanlaytic definitions of intra-psychic and subjective meaning in patients suffering psychotic conditions. Irrespective of the particular type of psychotic illness under consideration of the context or treatment, each paper illustrates how the psychoanalytic clinician searches to establish meaning from events which are highly complex and often overwhelmingly confusing.Contributors: "Psychosis and violence" Leslie Sohn; "Sorrow, Vulnerability and Madness", Michael Conran; "How Can You Keep Your Hair On?", Michael Sinason; "The Delusions of the Non-Remitting Schizophrenias - Parallels with Childhood Phantasies", Thomas Freeman; "Managing Psychotic Patients in a Day Hospital Setting", Richard Lucas; "Desctructive Narcissism" and "The Singing Detective", David Bell.

This is a collection of seven true stories of individuals insulted and injured by the mental health system, individuals who then fought back, broke free, and rebuilt their lives. Madness, Heresy, and the Rumor of Angels is a work in the tradition of Thomas Szasz, R. D. Laing, and Erving Goffman, a challenge to the delusional belief-system known as psychiatry, and a protest against its appalling crimes.

18th century philosopher Edmund Burke wrote, 'deformity is opposed, not to beauty, but to the complete, common form. If one of the legs of a man be found shorter than the other, the man is deformed; because there is something wanting to complete the whole idea we form of a man'. During the long 18th century, new ideas from aesthetics and the emerging scientific disciplines of physics, biology and zoology contributed to changing fundamental notions about human form, function and ability. The interrelated concepts of the natural and the beautiful coalesced into a hegemonic ideology of form, one which defined communal standards regarding which aspects of human appearance and ability would be considered typical and socially acceptable and which would not. An essential resource for researchers, scholars and students of history, literature, culture and education, A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century explores such themes and topics as: atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health.

"This study focuses on the role of the philosophical novel--a genre that favors abstract concepts, or 'thinking about thinking,' over style, plot, or character development--and the role of philosophy more broadly in the intellectual life of the African continent"

This volume offers a rare mix of interpretive chapters and primary sources that will be of value to anyone interested in learning about important disability-related issues and exploring the perspectives of disabled people. Disability has become a human rights and social justice issue that should concern all Americans. Access to safe, affordable, and effective health care, access to safe and affordable housing, access to reliable and efficient public transportation, and the ability to work and participate freely in the community are central to disability justice movements. Unlike encyclopedias or biographical dictionaries that only offer brief accounts of key topics, people, events, and organizations, Disability: A Reference Handbook provides important interpretive and analytical frameworks and meaningful primary evidence. The book opens with a chapter dedicated to the history of disability in the United States, placing 21st-century issues and concerns within their contexts. The next chapter explores important controversies and questions related to disability. The third chapter brings diverse voices to the topic, and the fourth chapter offers valuable profiles of key people and organizations. The remaining chapters provide valuable reference tools that will help readers to explore topics in more depth and to engage in independent research.

What does it mean to queer a concept? If queerness is a notion that implies a destabilization of the normativity of the body, then all cultural systems contain zones of discomfort relevant to queer studies. What then might we make of such zones when the use of the term queer itself has transcended the fields of sex and gender, becoming a metaphor for addressing such cultural phenomena as hybridization, resignification, and subversion? Further still, what should we make of it when so many people are reluctant to use the term queer, because they view it as theoretical colonialism, or a concept that loses its specificity when applied to a culture that signifies and uses the body differently? Translating the Queer focuses on the dissemination of queer knowledge, concepts, and representations throughout Latin America, a migration that has been accompanied by concomitant processes of translation, adaptation, and epistemological resistance.