History of madness
by Michel Foucault · first published 2006
5mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2013–2019first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
When it was first published in France in 1961 as Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la Folie à l'âge Classique, few had heard of a thirty-four year old philosopher by the name of Michel Foucault. By the time an abridged English edition was published in 1967 as Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault had shaken the intellectual world. This translation is the first English edition of the complete French texts of the first and second edition, including all prefaces and appendices, some of them unavailable in the existing French edition. History of Madness begins in the Middle Ages with vivid
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…radical and not easy to contend with at first (especially from the perspective of anglo-american pedagogy), but the level of scholarly thinking and ingenuity the man possessed are awe-inducing. His thesis History of Madness is still an incredible read and really drives home the often great degree of malleability and historical contingency of cultural/social concepts and categories.
on “Foucault in California” ↗…interventions is improvement - of the patient, of society by their confinement, and so on. One can desire to do good and still perpetuate unspeakable cruelty and harm. Shockingly, no mention of Foucault's "History of Madness", which I love and is well worth reading if you are as interested in this subject as I. Foucault says these institutions began primarily as a moral category, and that confinement was a way to isolate…
on “Rethinking madness: inside the world's oldest mental asylum” ↗…really interested in this subject (how western societies treat the "insane" as the societies themselves evolve) I would recommend Michel Foucault's "Madness and Civilization", more recently published as "History of Madness". It's a very long book and I must confess I only got through about two thirds of it, but it certainly opened my eyes into how definitions of what it meant to be "sane" have changed over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madness_and_Civilization
on “The age of unreason” ↗An article about the status/role/context of insanity and society which doesn't mention Foucault's work? Published in the year of my birth (1961), which I like to think is a coincidence... Foucault M. History of Madness. Khalfa J, editor, translator & Murphy J, translator. New York: Routledge; 2006. ISBN 0-415-27701-9.
on “The myth of ‘mad’ genius” ↗It might help to borrow a smidge from Foucault's History of Madness. What impact does labelling have beyond a purely descriptive belief? Is there an ideological conflict between what is mad and what is not? The simplest example that comes to mind is hysteria. We can…
on “Review of the DSM-V as a piece of dystopian fiction” ↗