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 editions preserve the original texts of
these important books while presenting them in durable paperback
and hardcover 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.
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