ENGL46730: Cultures of Madness

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• Examine the historical and political contexts underpinning clinical models of mental illness and wellness (e.g. the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and Western essentialist models of healthy and/or normative selfhood
• Explore alternative frames for representing, reading, and relating to madness and mental distress, thinking beyond universalised bio-psychiatric diagnostic frameworks and Western essentialist models
• Understand alternative conceptions of selfhood, relationality, and mental health that are contextually informed and culturally meaningful
• Reflect on questions of representational power, agency, voice, and response through a range of different forms of representation, from memoir and fiction to film and visual art
• Appreciate how medium (fiction, non-fiction, film, etc.) influences the representation and reception of mental distress, and how these mediums themselves are institutionally-regulated or gatekept
• Engage with decoloniality as a critical methodology both in academic and activist practice

• This module explores representations of mental distress across different cultural contexts and creative modes of expression in often under-studied contemporary literary and visual material from the 21st century. Drawing on Decolonial, Neuroqueer, and Mad Studies theoretical approaches, the module critically engages with the concept of madness in both its discursive construction and material realities, challenging the singularity of Western biomedical definitions and diagnostic models.
• The module makes an intervention in critical calls to decolonise the curriculum by modelling a pedagogical approach to reading and responding to representations of distress grounded in ethical, non-extractive methodologies (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2020). The module corpus centres material from across Africa, Asia, and the Americas to foreground the validity and value of epistemologies and ontologies outside the Western canon. Thus the module goes beyond simple representational models, which prioritise the inclusion of texts by authors of colour or which feature characters of colour. Rather it prioritises a wide variety of ways of being and knowing, beyond and in tension with the supposed white Western norm.
• Students will explore the multiple modes of representing and relating to madness that are historically-rooted and culturally-salient. The question of what madness and mental health is, and how we can or should respond to those experiences, is of great public and popular significance. This module will not only appeal to students intellectual interests, but will also be relevant to them in a wide range of possible future careers, from journalism to teaching, from literary editing to third sector work.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• A sophisticated understanding of the interplay between aesthetic form (genre, voice, space, and time) and sociopolitical formations (gender, race, class, and sexuality) in representations of madness
• A critical engagement with the collusion of knowledge and power in creative spaces: what forms of knowledge and modes of knowledge production are institutionally-recognised and authorised, and how intersecting marginalities influence the power of self-representation

Subject-specific Skills:

• Advanced critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary, visual, film, and historical texts;
• An ability to offer advanced analysis of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature, visual art, and media;
• An ability to articulate and substantiate at a high level an imaginative response to various forms of cultural production;
• An ability to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the cultural, intellectual, socio-political contexts of cultural production;
• An ability to articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of conceptual or theoretical literary material;
• An advanced command of a broad range of vocabulary and critical literary and sociological terminology.

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• an advanced ability to analyse critically;
• an advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• an advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• an independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• an advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• a competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• professional organisation and time-management skills.

• Students are encouraged to develop advanced conceptual abilities and analytical skills as well as the ability to communicate an advanced knowledge and conceptual understanding within seminars
• The capacity for advanced independent study is demonstrated through the completion of two assessed pieces of work.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the module convenor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Each student will be offered two 30-minute sessions with the module convenors in preparation for the summative assessment; the first is for developing a title and scope for their assessment, and the second to review a 500-word plan that students may submit to the convenors. Students will also be offered a 15-minute feedback session after their assessment, to be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time with student and module convenor. These sessions may be held online or in-person.

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