Art, Crime and Madness

Art, Crime and Madness PDF Author: Shlomo Giora Shoham
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1836241496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Art, Crime and Madness explores the relationship between creative innovation, deviance and morbidity. To innovate, one has to be able to view the medium and the object of creativity in a different, hitherto unexplored manner. The essence of art is creative innovation, coupled with an ability, in varying degrees, to transcend the boundaries of consciousness. But this 'ability' is also the prerogative of the mentally deranged. Likewise, the criminal and the deviant are more likely to transcend normative barriers while creating, hence the wide range of criminal and deviant behaviour in society. Although the inverse hypothesis does not hold -- the mere existence of deviance or morbidity does not predispose the individual to creativity -- nevertheless criminal and mad behaviour are often very innovative. This thesis is illustrated by historical case histories of creative deviance and genius madness, and contemporary observations. The painter Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio killed a man while still a teenager, and a second victim during a ball game. In his lifetime he was considered degenerate, but today he is considered the greatest painter of the Italian Settecento, and his portrait adorns the Hundred-Thousand Lira note. Jean Genet the homosexual thief was born out of wedlock and as a teenager he transgressed almost all the paragraphs of the French criminal code. But he became a famous French playwright, the mouthpiece for criminals and deviants. His plays built up a philosophical apology for the raison d'etre of the criminal group.

Art, Crime and Madness

Art, Crime and Madness PDF Author: Shlomo Giora Shoham
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1836241496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Art, Crime and Madness explores the relationship between creative innovation, deviance and morbidity. To innovate, one has to be able to view the medium and the object of creativity in a different, hitherto unexplored manner. The essence of art is creative innovation, coupled with an ability, in varying degrees, to transcend the boundaries of consciousness. But this 'ability' is also the prerogative of the mentally deranged. Likewise, the criminal and the deviant are more likely to transcend normative barriers while creating, hence the wide range of criminal and deviant behaviour in society. Although the inverse hypothesis does not hold -- the mere existence of deviance or morbidity does not predispose the individual to creativity -- nevertheless criminal and mad behaviour are often very innovative. This thesis is illustrated by historical case histories of creative deviance and genius madness, and contemporary observations. The painter Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio killed a man while still a teenager, and a second victim during a ball game. In his lifetime he was considered degenerate, but today he is considered the greatest painter of the Italian Settecento, and his portrait adorns the Hundred-Thousand Lira note. Jean Genet the homosexual thief was born out of wedlock and as a teenager he transgressed almost all the paragraphs of the French criminal code. But he became a famous French playwright, the mouthpiece for criminals and deviants. His plays built up a philosophical apology for the raison d'etre of the criminal group.

Trials of Passion

Trials of Passion PDF Author: Lisa Appignanesi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605988154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
A journey into the heart of dark passions and the crimes they impel. When passion is in the picture, what is criminal, what is sane, what is mad or simply bad? Through court and asylum records, letters and newspaper accounts, this book brings to life some sensational trials between 1870 and 1914, a period when the psychiatric professions were consolidating their hold on our understanding of what is human. Outside fiction, individual emotions and the inner life had rarely been publicly discussed: now, in an increasingly popular press and its courtroom reports, people avidly consumed accounts of transgressive sexuality, savage jealousy and forbidden desires. These stood revealed as aspects not only of those labelled mad, but potentially, of everyone. With great story-telling flair and a wealth of historical detail, Lisa Appignanesi teases out the vagaries of passion and the clashes between the law and the clinic as they stumble towards a (sometimes reviled) collaboration. Sexual etiquette and class roles, attitudes to love, madness and gender, notions of respectability and honor, insanity and lunacy, all are at play in that vital forum in which public opinion is shaped—the theater of the courtroom.

Viva La Madness

Viva La Madness PDF Author: J. J. Connolly
Publisher: Prelude Books
ISBN: 0715642219
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
Hiding out in the Carribean until the heat dies down from his last job, X is thinking it’s time to ditch the resort life and calls up his old friend Morty to plot his return to London. But he’s hardly stepped off the plane when his associates, Sonny King and Roy ‘Twitchy’ Burns, get on the wrong side of a feuding Venezuelan drug cartel on the hunt for a sensitive package. Suddenly he’s thrown into a stand-off between rival mobs and with so many players in the game it’s tough going making out who wants to cut him a deal and who’s trying to kill him. Darkly comic, fast-paced and full of twists Viva la Madness is packed with sex, scams, drugs and enough dirty money to fill a few offshore bank accounts.

Crime, Madness and Politics in Modern France

Crime, Madness and Politics in Modern France PDF Author: Robert A. Nye
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400856272
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Robert A. Nye places in historical context a medical concept of deviance that developed in France in the last half of the nineteenth century, when medical models of cultural crisis linked thinking about crime, mental illness, prostitution, alcoholism, suicide, and other pathologies to French national decline. Originally published in 1984. 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.

Madness and Irrationality in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture

Madness and Irrationality in Spanish and Latin American Literature and Culture PDF Author: Lloyd Hughes Davies
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786835762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This is the first monograph to consider the significance of madness and irrationality in both Spanish and Spanish American literature. It considers various definitions of ‘madness’ and explores the often contrasting responses, both positive (figural madness as stimulus for literary creativity) and negative (clinical madness representing spiritual confinement and sterility). The concept of national madness is explored with particular reference to Argentina: while, on the one hand, the country’s vast expanses have been seen as conducive to madness, the urban population of Buenos Aires, on the other, appears to be especially dependent on psychoanalytic therapy. The book considers both the work of lesser-known writers such as Nuria Amat, whose personal life is inflected by a form of literary madness, and that of larger literary figures such as José Lezama Lima, whose poetic concepts are suffused with the irrational. The conclusion draws attention to the ‘other side’ of reason as a source of possible originality in a world dominated by the tenets of logic and conventionalised thinking.

Divine Madness

Divine Madness PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Kottler
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787982326
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
"Madness can afford the individual certain resources and abilities that are not available to others. The fantasy life, free flight of ideas, distortions of reality, and heightened senses . . . offer a unique perspective on the world." —From the Introduction Why do some extraordinary individuals overcome mental anguish and produce brilliant creative artistry that is often enhanced by their madness? New York Times best-selling author and noted psychologist Jeffrey Kottler explores this fascinating question in Divine Madness. His book is filled with the compelling stories of emotional turmoil that many great artists have undergone as they struggle for success and survival. Jeffrey Kottler writes about the dramatic and tragic lives of cultural icons Sylvia Plath, Judy Garland, Mark Rothko, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Charles Mingus, Vaslav Nijinsky, Marilyn Monroe, Lenny Bruce, and Brian Wilson. In this riveting book, Kottler highlights the personal story of each of these extraordinary individuals and analyzes how they struggled to overcome their emotional hardships. Divine Madness clearly differentiates between those who surrendered to their illness, often taking their own lives, and those who managed to endure and even recover. Kottler details how their profound psychological issues affected their lives and work, their great productivity and success, and how they strove to achieve some kind of personal stability. The fascinating and brilliantly told stories in Divine Madness help us to find meaning in the incredible lives of these artists. They also serve as an inspiration for those who are grappling to rise above their own challenges and limitations and express themselves more productively and creatively.

Crime and Madness in Modern Austria

Crime and Madness in Modern Austria PDF Author: Rebecca S. Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527565602
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
This collection of essays explores the changing history, rhetoric, politics and representation of crime and madness in modern Austria. From the emergence of Viennese modernism to the post-modern moment, the myths, metaphors and realities of crime and madness have unfolded in the shadow of larger cultural questions regarding cultural norms, gender, war, and national identity. Historically based contributions illuminate such diverse cultural realities as the evolution of psychiatry as medical practice, asylum practices in the early twentieth century, and Austrian participation in and responses to terror and war crimes. From these investigations proceeds the clear insight that cultural responses to crime and madness are often steeped in mythmaking as much as objective policy and practice. Conversely, literary and metaphorical representations of crime and madness reveal attitudes and cultural realities about the Austrian society that produced them and which they reflect. Specialists from the fields of Austrian history, literature and culture studies have collaborated to produce this truly interdisciplinary volume, which responses to crime and madness are often steeped in mythmaking as much as objective policy and practice. Conversely, literary and metaphorical representations of crime and madness reveal attitudes and cultural realities about the Austrian society that produced them and which they reflect.

The Art of Dying

The Art of Dying PDF Author: Ambrose Parry
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786896729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
'Parry's Victorian Edinburgh comes vividly alive – and it's a world of pain' Val McDermid 'Brilliantly conceived, fiendishly plotted' Mick Herron SHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020 A Raven and Fisher Mystery: Book 2 Edinburgh, 1849. Hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. And a whispering campaign seeks to paint Dr James Simpson, pioneer of medical chloroform, as a murderer. Determined to clear Simpson’s name, his protégé Will Raven and former housemaid Sarah Fisher must plunge into Edinburgh’s deadliest streets and find out who or what is behind the deaths. Soon they discover that the cause of the deaths has evaded detection purely because it is so unthinkable.

The Velveteen Daughter

The Velveteen Daughter PDF Author: Laurel Davis Huber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1631521934
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
The Velveteen Daughter reveals for the first time the true story of two remarkable women: Margery Williams Bianco, the author of one of the most beloved children's books of all time,The Velveteen Rabbit,and her daughter Pamela, a world-renowned child prodigy artist whose fame at one time greatly eclipses her mother's. But celebrity at such an early age exacts a great toll. Pamela's dreams elude her as she struggles with severe depressions, an overbearing father, an obsessive love affair, and a spectacularly misguided marriage. Throughout, her life raft is her mother. The glamorous art world of Europe and New York in the early 20th century and a supporting cast of luminaries—Eugene O'Neill and his wife Agnes (Margery's niece), Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Richard Hughes, author of A High Wind in Jamaica—provide a vivid backdrop to the Biancos' story. From the opening pages, the novel will captivate readers with its multifaceted and illuminating observations on art, family, and the consequences of genius touched by madness.

Reefer Madness

Reefer Madness PDF Author: Various
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
ISBN: 1630087750
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Degradation! Crime! Madness! Hysteria surrounded marijuana as a perceived gateway drug from the 1930's to the 1950's and beyond. Adventure Comics, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and works by Frank Frazetta, Jerry Robinson, Jack Kirby, and many more, reveal the social reaction to this era of "Reefer Madness". Like the anti-drug propaganda film, these stories range from comically misinformed to soberly concerned about the influence of Mary Jane on the youth of America. Eisner and Harvey Award winner Craig Yoe brings us his newest collection of wacky, wild, and culturally relevant comics. See how marijuana was perceived in the days of ignorance before it was legalized by the visionary people of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado! See marijuana demonized as a "Satan's cigarettes" in 1950's comics!