Manic behavior holds an undeniable fascination in American
culture today. It fuels the plots of best-selling novels and the
imagery of MTV videos, is acknowledged as the driving force for
successful entrepreneurs like Ted Turner, and is celebrated as the
source of the creativity of artists like Vincent Van Gogh and movie
stars like Robin Williams. "Bipolar Expeditions" seeks to
understand mania's appeal and how it weighs on the lives of
Americans diagnosed with manic depression.
Anthropologist Emily Martin guides us into the fascinating and
sometimes disturbing worlds of mental-health support groups, mood
charts, psychiatric rounds, the pharmaceutical industry, and
psychotropic drugs. Charting how these worlds intersect with the
wider popular culture, she reveals how people living under the
description of bipolar disorder are often denied the status of
being fully human, even while contemporary America exhibits a
powerful affinity for manic behavior. Mania, Martin shows, has come
to be regarded as a distant frontier that invites exploration
because it seems to offer fame and profits to pioneers, while
depression is imagined as something that should be eliminated
altogether with the help of drugs.
"Bipolar Expeditions" argues that mania and depression have a
cultural life outside the confines of diagnosis, that the
experiences of people living with bipolar disorder belong fully to
the human condition, and that even the most so-called rational
everyday practices are intertwined with irrational ones. Martin's
own experience with bipolar disorder informs her analysis and lends
a personal perspective to this complex story.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!