LFU:online

Institut für Amerikastudien Institut für Amerikastudien

Mag. Dr. Lucia Birgit Blasl Mag. Dr. Lucia Birgit Blasl

610012

On the Edge of Sanity: Mental Illness and Disordered Behavior in American Literature

PS 2

3,5

wöch.

keine Angabe

Englisch

This course will examine the representation of mental illness and disordered behavior in major literary works from the mid-19th century to the present. We will look at how the mad/disordered were diagnosed, treated, stigmatized, listened to, or silenced over time and explore several categories of mental deviation such as depression, schizophrenia, mental retardation, borderline syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder. Literary readings will include excerpts from novels by William Faulkner( _As I Lay Dying_), John Steinbeck (_Of Mice and Men_), Ken Kesey( _One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest_), Sylvia Plath (_The Bell Jar_), Maxine Hong Kingston (_The Woman Warrior_), Leslie Marmon Silko (_Ceremony_) and Susanna Kaysen (_Girl, Interrupted_); short stories by Edgar Allan Poe ("The Tell-Tale Heart"), Charlotte Perkins Gilman ("The Yellow Wallpaper") and Katherine Anne Porter ("He"); poems by John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.

Reading of the texts, active class-participation, study questions, presentation/workshop, final exam, research paper (10-12 pages)

written and oral

Students must have passed the "Introduction to American Literature and Culture" to attend this course
Beginn: 13. März 2008