... Submitted by, Meera M Panicker 1st yr Integrated MA Introduction When I started reading Foucault’s madness and Civilization, i had no idea about what i was going to do for the term paper. I was just fascinated by how his ideas on all of it, madness and normality sounded. When i started reading, it was at first not easy to understand, but slowly i started understanding little by little. Foucaults works have little reiews from the west and more reviews from the French. The French had cut and dissected the book in no way the western world has, and this actually made reading harder because there were very little available on the subject. So, i have relied on more of a personal understanding of what i have read. The narrenschiff or the ship of fools, like it had fascinated Foucault also fascinated me. I was fascinated by how renaissance exalted madness and gloricised it in its artworks, but how event then it was excluded at the same time. While reading I felt that Foucault in some ways favoured and saw that the ship of fools was a profounder concept and that it was more humane way of exclusion over civilizations. Here I have tried to see the whatsand how of this, whether Foucault actually saw the narrenschiff as a...
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...1) What is at stake in this decision for Carol and for Davis Press? Why? There is a lot at stake in this decision for Carol and Davis Press. Let’s take a look at what would happen if the book “Meccan Madness” were to be published. Referring to the past and what had happen to Rushdie when his book “The Satanic Verse” was released, it was mayhem. Death threats were issued, Rushdie was wanted dead for several years, and innocent people were killed and much more were injured. If Carol decides to publish Taajwar’s book, there is a possibility history could repeat itself, which includes Davis Press making high profits by selling the book, but also losing millions of dollars that went towards the security of employees. If Carol decided not to publish the book, it is obvious they will lose on the chance of making high profits. However, all the employees will remain safe and not have to fear what will happen to them if “Meccan Madness” is published. 2) Who are the stakeholders here? To whom (or what) does Davis owe her allegiance? The stakeholders in this case are the employees of Davis Press. The employees play a major role in this case because of the amount of work they do for the company. Another stakeholder in this case is the government because in the event problems occur between countries. This sort of situation happen when Rushdie’s book was published where there was issues between Britain and Iran. Carol owes her loyalty to the employees for the amount of...
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...life? Why would the author use the allusion of a bell jar for this story? | “…I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (185). | In this quote, Esther has accepted her madness. She thoroughly believes she is trapped in her own mind and cannot escape. The first idea of this bell jar of madness comes forth here. “The bell jar wadded around me,” (186) concludes that she feels someone or something is going to trap her, such as a scientist would in science. She feels as if nothing can help her, as if the bell jar is going to come down on her at any moment. | Level 2 & 3 Questions | Important Quote from the Text | Analysis | What does the connection between tornados and Esther’s on coming madness symbolize? | “I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo” (9). | Esther says this after coming to New York. The idea of Esther feeling distant from others appears in this quote. The entire time in New York she feels this way. With all she has overcome to get to this point, but she is still uncertain. Esther finds New York confusing and depressing rather than romantic and exciting. This quote foreshadows what is to come, and the madness to come that will soon over take her. The gap between her expectations of herself verses the expectations of others about her become too large that she feel she can longer overcome this and no longer survive...
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...Life of Pi Theme of Religion At times, Life of Pi reads like a defense of religion. Has science proved religion wrong? Here's a protagonist who believes passionately in both zoology and religion. What about the fact of multiple faiths? Don't these faiths contradict each other, cause wars, and other problems? Here's a protagonist who is Muslim, Christian, and Hindu – all at the same time. The book defends not only the common spirit behind these three religions, but the rituals and ceremonies of each. It's as if all three religions find harmonious common ground in this character. Seems unlikely, but then again, the protagonist argues passionately that the miraculous happens in our darkest moments. Quote #1But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both. (1.4.14) | Do zoos incarcerate animals in confined spaces and make them miserable? Pi doesn't think so: "Certain illusions about freedom" tempt us to this conclusion. In actuality, an animal's life in the wild is more circumscribed than "a knight on a chessboard" (1.4.8). Predator-prey relationships restrict the animal's movement. A zoo enclosure is actually more like a hearth for an animal: a place of comfort and rest. Likewise, most people think of religion as a restrictive...
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...In the story madness is not just looked at as the unadulterated control, but to humanities ultimate frailty. Conrad uses Kurtz to show this in the way that he has no one to answer to outside of himself, and just like socialism, it is just too much power for one person to hold. Imperialism today is defined as “a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force” (Dictionary.com, n.d.). After the Industrial Revolution, this became a common practice of European nations seeking new sources of raw materials and markets to sell mass-produced products. Modern countries desired to expand their infrastructure by obtaining raw materials that could be moved back to their factories, turned into manufactured goods, and sold at markets. Imperialism exists today, but not in the exact form seen during the Roman or British Empire. Imperialism is exercises today by projecting power and influence through military force, ideological control, capitalist accumulation and the dominance of international finance, trade, technology and science. Modern imperialist state has no need to inhabit foreign lands to monopolize it, but it may, for its own interests, manage and control the profiteering of wealth and resources of its subject. To carry out its aspirations...
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...www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Empire and Excess: Kipling and the Critique of Said’s Orientalism Sourit Bhattacharya Edward Said’s Orientalism remains one of the most influential books of the last quarter of twentieth century. In an informative manner, Said locates the seeds of Orientalism right in the medieval European imagination that solidifies itself in the nineteenth century. It is through knowledge, power, reason, scientific technologies and disciplinary set-up, philosophical supremacy and commercial benefit that the Europeans tried to redefine and restructure the East. The result was the emergence of a new form of ‘power’ based on information and control. Behind all the sacrificial and religious garb of the ‘white man’s burden’, Said notes, there runs hideous machinery that distorts the forms of knowledge, and remoulds the subject-object relationship in a Eurocentric mirror reflection. The orient becomes a textual study, a place, seen in mass, and considered to be transformed in such implacable homogeneity. Said writes: “In the system of knowledge about the Orient, the orient is less a place than a topos, a set of references, a congeries of characteristics, that seems to have its origin in a quotation, or a fragment of a text, or a citation from someone’s work on the Orient.”1 The Orient, like the ‘terra nullius’ notion of Australian imperialism, never exists, or exists in a manner which is vast, amorphous...
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...Kay Redfield’s memoir, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, is a clinical and personal perspective on bipolar disorder—both deeply moving and clinically correct. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Jamison brings an unparalleled perspective to the manic-depressive memoir shelf. She’s able to cut deep into the subject with professionalism, meaningful diction, care, compassion, and most important of all—true life experience. She begins early in her life as an overall normal kid. Her parents are both caring and intellectual, which goes a long way in influencing her passion for science. Her father was a military pilot who she seemed to love deeply. However, Dr. Redfield digs into deep into her father’s troubled side—which clearly mimics bipolar disorder symptoms—demonstrating manic depression’s genetic link. Her manic depression doesn’t kick in full force till her college years. Due to her father’s instability, he lost his job—ruining her chance to attend the college of her choice. But, Dr. Jamison noted that her attendance at UCLA proved the best option for her—offering a diverse culture, and plenty of research opportunities. Unfortunately, her college years were marked with a bipolar struggle that led her to conclude—that unlike most people’s college years—her time was quite dismal. She writes that she was hesitant to expose her bipolar disorder due to possible ramifications from the psychiatry community and her patients—such as a lack of confidence in her ability to do administration...
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...is to distinguish the works of both these sociologists and identify the concepts that both try to portray. When speaking in relation to the works of Erving Goffman, one must speak about his studies of the self and the identity that one creates in society. He speaks of how people are actors and that performances are what the people see and thus creating the self identity of one self. Performance is the key area which Goffman speaks about in his writings. From here, the essay will establish how institutions have an effect on certain societies and what happens to identity once someone enters into an institution and the meaning of total institution and will incorporate the work of Foucault. Michel Foucault looks at the long term history of madness, asylums and prisons. The essay will elaborate on Foucault by discussing what he says in relation to where and why such institutions came about, thus the effects that they have on an individual. Erving Goffman Identity “I shall consider the way in which the individual in ordinary works situations presents himself and his activity to others, the ways in which he guides and controls the impression they form of him, and the kinds of things he may and may not do while sustaining his performance before them” (Goffman 1959, p.9) It is believed, that when individuals come into contact with another, it is general that one will search for the information about the other person (Goffman 1959). This is done by different means....
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...Positivism is a philosophy of science and a theory of methodology which suggests that social behaviour should be researched according to the principles of natural science, whereas interpretivism is an alternative to the positivist scientific tradition, interpretivists argue society cannot be studied in the same way as objects in natural interactions. However alternative theories of methodologies e.g.: Realism, Feminism, social constructionism and methodological cosmopolitanism are said to be better useful ways for gaining an understanding of society today then positivists and interpretivists. Positivism is a philosophy of science and a theory of methodology which suggests that social behaviour should be researched according to the principles of natural science. For example Comte a positivists who first used the word ‘sociology’, argued that sociology should be based on the methodology of the natural sciences. As this would result in positive science society and would reveal invariable laws and could use the research to control and improve society. Positivists assumptions on the subject matter is that people are the subjects of social forces beyond their control, for example Durkheim (1874) tried to establish sociology as a distinct discipline with his famous study Le Suicide (using a positivists approach). Durkheim believed that Comte had not successfully established sociology as a scientific discipline as that sociology could be objective as the natural science so long as we study...
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...Subscribe to this SiteHistory of Counseling Generally the problems they faced were of two kinds; grief over the loss of a loved one, or guilt related to the problem of wrong behavior, sometimes called sin. There were other problems of course, ranging from love sickness, to anxiety, to madness. Such extraordinary problems called for extraordinary solutions. Love sickness had its potions, and anxiety its elixirs and counsel, while madmen were often considered to be touched by the gods, and if not honored they were at worse driven from their community. Hannibal, Alexander, and Caesar with their bouts of epilepsy are examples of the former, whereas King David (I Samuel 21:10-15) and the maniac of Gadara (Luke 8:26-39) are examples of the later. Such was the order of things for millennia. However, as populations grew and religions changed, madness began to be looked upon with less tolerance. In time, “mad houses” came into existence to deal with the impatience and fear of society with such people. It was about this time that psychiatry and psychology began to make their presence known. Both had their origins in 19th century Europe. However, of the two, psychology was far more a product of science than...
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...* Your School or College Social constructivist perspective for understanding schizophrenia, mental health and illness Mentor: Student: *name *name Spring, 2013 Contents: 1 INTRODUCTION 3 2 Social constructivist perspective of schizophrenia 4 3 CONCLUSION 7 REFERENCES 8 INTRODUCTION In this paper we analyze the concept according to which mental illness is as much a socially constructed disease as it is a physiological one and especially the example of schizophrenia, one of the oldest, most documented, and least understood of all the behaviors that fall under society’s category of mental illness. One of the most influential theoretical positions evident in the sociology of health and illness over the past 30 years has been social constructivism. A central assumption within this broad approach is that reality is not self-evident, stable and waiting to be discovered, but instead it is a product of human activity. In this broad sense all versions of social constructivism can be identified as a reaction against positivism and naive realism. There are multiple intellectual roots of a social constructionist approach to illness. Some of the basic building blocks are evident in the writings of early sociological thinkers (Durkheim, Mannheim, Thomas), but one of the most important intellectual foundations of the social construction of illness is social problems theory...
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...crazy because they were crazy or if the drugs and the diagnoses made them act that way? Next we move onto the experiment from Rosenthal and Jacobson. They tested children’s IQ’s and randomly assigned them to either a group expected to “spurt” or not. A year later, in review, those expected to “spurt” had. Their IQ’s had risen and they had indeed spurted. Why? Were they pushed harder than the other students or were they given better opportunities to learn more. I wonder if our abilities to learn are based on expectations or on opportunities. When I am expected to excel at something I am pushed harder by those wanting to see me succeed and I do. But I am also given the opportunity to excel. In the same way that Rosenhan wonders if madness creates madness and that we are more or less a product of our environments I think that Rosenthal and Jacobson think the same. I can see the symmetry in the two studies. We take our cues from those in roles of authority. In this same chapter the author, Slater, repeat Rosenhan’s experiments. While she does not get the same results as Rosenhan and his confederates she does get a diagnosis, always the same, of psychotic depression. She is then given a script and sent on her way with a promise to follow up. She states exactly how I feel about the situation. We live in a time where a diagnosis is driven by medication. The doctor always telling us they have a pill for that. It is sad and it is frustrating. Rarely do we hear a doctor tell us they do...
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...As my professor Dr. Randy Oberhoff (Forensic Psychology 6101, 2013) said… “It's not as if there are some founding fathers of Forensic Psychology”. My choice of specialty would be in corrections oriented toward involuntary conferment of the mentally ill; this is because I have worked in this field for the last decade; Dr. Oberhoff centres his field of interest in malingering, deception, recidivism, psychopathy, and rehab for criminals. Theorists that contribute to Dr. Oberhoff area of interests are scholars such as Robert Hare (psychopathy); Rick Rogers (Malingering/deception); and Richard Rogers etc. Our evolving world, multicultrism, poverty, and the highest incarceration rate in the globe- the field forensic psychology is still considered at its early stages. (Bartol and Bartol, 2012) My two personal favourite theorists are Dr. Roger Hare, and Dr. Lorna Rhodes. There are many reasons as to why I chose these two theorists as my favorite for their efforts and contribute in to the field forensic psychology, and correctional services. It was noted by Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Katzenbach (2011)… “What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons” (Gibbons and Katzenbach, 2011, p.36). Being surrounded by negativity, fear, anxiety, rumors, hostility, and threat of physical violence have a profound effect on both the staff and offenders in a correctional facility. Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Katzenbach(2011) further state “when people lived and worked in facilities...
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...Cannabis, is the world’s most famous illicit drug. Many of young adults today use cannabis for recreational purposes. Culturally, cannabis has influenced a majority of the youth to become a part of a taboo. Socially, cannabis has its impact; individuals suffer from peer pressure from their friends. The use of marijuana is less harmful than other, legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco. However, marijuana is the most widely used in the world; it remains illegal almost everywhere in the world. Since the past decade, there has been a large number of movements for the decriminalization, or the legalization of marijuana. Politicians, on the other hand, often refuse to take a stand on the issue. Also, in the rare instances when a politician does attempt to address the problems with prohibitionist attitudes towards marijuana, they face harsh opinion from their peers, which is a result of their fear of losing the support from their board. Cannabis is not just a drug cannabis also brings technological, health and economic benefits to the world. When people hear the word hemp or marijuana they believe in the medical aspects but it also has a vast amount of usefulness for example; hemp is able to produce plastic and medicine it is said that one acre of hemp is to produce more oxygen than twenty-five acres of forest. One important use of cannabis is the use as bio fuel with the plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then...
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...words. But what do they actually mean? For decades, readers and audiences alike have been wondering if Hamlet’s “antic disposition” is actually an act, or complete and total madness. It is very possible that, if Hamlet were alive today, he would have been diagnosed with many mental illnesses including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. This is not to say he had these throughout the entirety of his life, but after the death of his father and other traumatic events that added to Hamlet’s misery, his act of madness developed into actual insanity. If he were alive in modern times, he would have been treated for these illnesses with a combination of therapy and medications. Unfortunately, during the time this play is set and was written, a full understanding of psychological disorders has not yet been reached. Because his mental illnesses went untreated, Hamlet was a danger to both himself and others. He is so much of a danger that he kills his uncle, King Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Additionally, although it is not by his own hand, both Ophelia, the love of Hamlet’s life, and his mother, Queen Gertrude, take their own lives. Eventually, Hamlet himself dies as a result of a backfired plot to expose his uncle. The effects of Hamlet’s madness on both him, and everyone around him becomes too much, and the tragedy unfurls, although it would have been much different if Hamlet had received the proper treatment for...
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