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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Medical anthropology

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The Knotted Subject - Hysteria and Its Discontents (Paperback) Loot Price: R1,597
Discovery Miles 15 970
The Knotted Subject - Hysteria and Its Discontents (Paperback): Elisabeth Bronfen

The Knotted Subject - Hysteria and Its Discontents (Paperback)

Elisabeth Bronfen

Series: Princeton Legacy Library

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Loot Price R1,597 Discovery Miles 15 970 | Repayment Terms: R150 pm x 12*

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Surrealist writer Andre Breton praised hysteria for being the greatest poetic discovery of the nineteenth century, but many physicians have since viewed it as the "wastebasket of medicine," a psychosomatic state that defies attempts at definition and cure and that can be easily mistaken for other pathological conditions. In light of a resurgence of critical interest in hysteria, leading feminist scholar Elisabeth Bronfen reinvestigates medical writings and cultural performance to reveal the continued relevance of a disorder widely thought to be a romantic formulation of the past. Through a critical rereading, she develops a new concept of hysteria, one that challenges traditional gender-based theories linking it to dissatisfied feminine sexual desire. Bronfen turns instead to hysteria's traumatic causes, particularly the fear of violation, and shows how the conversion of psychic anguish into somatic symptoms can be interpreted today as the enactment of personal and cultural discontent.

Tracing the development of cultural formations of hysteria from the 1800s to the present, this book explores the writings of Freud, Charcot, and Janet together with fictional texts (Radcliffe, Stoker, Anne Sexton), opera (Mozart, Wagner), cinema (Cronenberg, Hitchcock, Woody Allen), and visual art (Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Cindy Sherman). Each of these creative works attests to a particular relationship between hysteria and self-fashioning, and enables us to read hysteria quite literally as a language of discontent. The message broadcasted by the hysteric is one of vulnerability: vulnerability of the symbolic, of identity, and of the human body itself.

Throughout this work, Bronfen not only offers fresh approaches to understanding hysteria in our culture, but also introduces a new metaphor to serve as a theoretical tool. Whereas the phallus has long dominated psychoanalytical discourse, the image of the navel--a knotted originary wound common to both genders--facilitates discussion of topics relevant to hysteria, such as trauma, mortality, and infinity. Bronfen's insights make for a lively, innovative work sure to interest readers across the fields of art and literature, feminism, and psychology.

Originally published in 1998.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905."

General

Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of origin: United States
Series: Princeton Legacy Library
Release date: July 2014
First published: July 2014
Authors: Elisabeth Bronfen
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - Trade
Pages: 490
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-60837-2
Categories: Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > General
Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Philosophy & theory of psychology > Psychoanalysis & psychoanalytical theory
Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Medical anthropology
LSN: 0-691-60837-7
Barcode: 9780691608372

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