HIST 3515A: Madness in Modern Times
Later Summer 2024
Instructor: Kira A. Smith
Introduction: The history of madness often evokes a sense of curiosity in the present day but also offers us a space to think critically about mental health. While this course will primarily examine how madness was understood and experienced from the eighteenth century onwards, the content will be relevant to our current discussions on mental health.
We’ll begin our time together by situating the relevance of mad history in how mental wellbeing is understood and experienced today. This will also bring up important ethical and theoretical questions of doing mad history. Then, in turning to the emergence of the asylum, this course will take an intersectional approach to understanding the diversity of experiences and pathologizing that emerged over our timeframe. This includes the experiences of women, queer folks, racialized and colonialized individuals, and children. We will explicitly examine how things like settler-colonialism and scientific-racism are foundational to the development of psychiatry, and what this meant for the contemporary mad folks and for mad individuals today. Finally, this course will return to present day by looking at how mad public history takes shape in popular culture. This will bring the course full circle as we continue to ask what is the relationship between the past and present?
The content will focus primarily on North American and European contexts, but wherever possible it will focus on Canada.
Class Format: For the condensed summer course, we will be meeting twice a week for three hours. Classes will be a mix of lectures, activities, and discussions. I encourage participation and welcome different ways of engagement.
Assessment: A major research creation with a proposal will be the main assignment for this course. Other assignments may include participation and short written assessments.
Readings: All articles and book chapters assigned will be available via ARES and online.
Questions? Please email me at: kirasmith@cunet.carleton.ca