Beyond these walls: confronting madness in society, literature and art

Originally published 2013 by Inter-Disciplinary Press, now available from Brill Publishing (2019).

Part I, on making sense of madness through Society and Social Policy, begins with a discussion of nineteenth-century colonial policy on lunatic asylums, before moving through 1950s New Rhetoric theory and discussions of studies of mental health and social policy across the world in recent years, and concluding with discussions of the lay and medical approaches and the implications of the forthcoming fifth edition of the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

The second part of this volume, Making Sense of Madness through Literature, examines ways in which different authors over the last 150 years have sought to make sense of madness.

Finally, Part III of this volume, Making Sense of Madness through Art and Personal Narratives, aims to improve our understanding of madness through art, literature, and personal reflection. The long tradition of artistic representations of madness is discussed from its beginnings in early cave drawings, through poetic
expression in the early twentieth century to art as therapy and representations of madness in film.

• https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848882034