Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1487520204 ISBN 13: 9781487520205

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2015

Synopsis

The problem of madness has preoccupied Russian thinkers since the beginning of Russia's troubled history and has been dealt with repeatedly in literature, art, film, and opera, as well as medical, political, and philosophical essays. Madness has been treated not only as a medical or psychological matter, but also as a metaphysical one, encompassing problems of suffering, imagination, history, sex, social and world order, evil, retribution, death, and the afterlife.

Madness and the Mad in Russian Culture represents a joint effort by American, British, and Russian scholars - historians, literary scholars, sociologists, cultural theorists, and philosophers - to understand the rich history of madness in the political, literary, and cultural spheres of Russia. Editors Angela Brintlinger and Ilya Vinitsky have brought together essays that cover over 250 years and address a wide variety of ideas related to madness - from the involvement of state and social structures in questions of mental health, to the attitudes of major Russian authors and cultural figures towards insanity and how those attitudes both shape and are shaped by the history, culture, and politics of Russia.

About this title

About the Author

Angela Brintlinger is an associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University.

Ilya Vinitsky is an assistant professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania.

Review

‘This collection of essays is both an excellent introduction to madness and an opportunity to probe this fascinating terrain in depth.’

(Nigel Raab Left History vol 20:01:2016)

‘The volume is a broad mosaic ... exciting and kaleidoscopic.’ (Elena L. Grigorenko PsycCRITIQUES)

‘A cornucopia of delights for specialists and generalists alike.’ (Scarlet Marquette Slavic and East European Journal)

‘The most comprehensive interdisciplinary survey of its kind.’ (Dmitri Shalin Russian Journal of Communication)

‘A series of fascinating essays that approach the problem of insanity in Russian culture from wide-ranging disciplinary angles.’ (Valeria Sobol The Russian Review)

"This collection is an important contribution to our understanding of the ways in which the shifting discourse of madness offers a rich and varied lens through which to explore Russia's troubled experience of modernity." (D. Beer Slavonic and East European Review/vvol88:03:10)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1487520204
• ISBN 13: 9781487520205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344
• Editor: Brintlinger Angela, Vinitsky Ilya