Madness and Literature Network

Project Duration

2008 - 2010

Funder

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Funding

£38,633

Aims

The Madness and Literature Network aims to stimulate cooperation and co-working between researchers, academics, clinicians, service users, carers and creative writers in order to develop an interdisciplinary, global dialogue about the issues raised around representations of madness in literature. 

Literary research has become a key resource for the advancement of medical and health professionals' education, affording broader perspectives, critical thinking skills and promoting an emotionally receptive or empathic climate for clinical practice. With this project, we are seeking to form new methodologies, strengthen and maintain partnerships and enable comprehensive critical dialogues across the fields of literature, linguistics and mental health care.

The term 'madness' is employed deliberately to signal our alignment with literary and historical scholarship and our commitment to a broad, inclusive approach, rather than a necessarily narrower clinical focus as would be implied by terms such as 'mental disorder', 'mental illness', or by naming a specific illness in our titling. We encourage individual reviewers to use whichever language they are comfortable with or find useful when writing for our site. 

Our database of fictions that focus on madness is listed thematically by experience and by disorder, and again we encourage reviewers to use whatever terminology they feel most useful here. In our book, Madness in Post 1945 British and American Fiction (Baker, Crawford, Brown, Lipsedge and Carter, Palgrave, 2010) we explore the many problems associated with diagnostic readings of fiction, and also how individual authors deconstruct and subvert classificatory systems in their work. However, feedback has suggested that a large number of users on this site prefer the ease of reference and navigation that using existing terminology brings. We would of course not want a database that was searchable only through terms such as 'madness'!

Methods

The project consists of three main strands:

• Website – The website has been developed with that aim of internationalising the Network. It contains a growing database of fiction and autobiography relating to madness and mental health – this currently has around 120 books included in it, which have been read and reviewed in part for the Leverhulme Trust funded project, hence it has a post-war focus at this stage. We welcome reviews from members of our network of any texts relating to issues of madness and mental health. These reviews will be fully peer-reviewed and published on the site, with full accreditation to the reviewer. 
• Four Seminars - Femi Oyebode spoke at our first seminar on Power and Psychiatry. Our second seminar was in May 2009 on Creativity and Mental Health, with authors Paul Sayer and Patrick Gale leading the day. The final two seminars were focused on Mental States, with Charley Baker, Professor Patricia Duncker and Dr Maurice Lipsedge presenting papers, and Ethnicity, Diversity, Madness and Fiction, with Professor Mark Johnson leading the day and additional papers presented by Paul Crawford and Brian Brown. Podcasts are available for a selection of these talks. 
• The 1st International Health Humanities Conference – In August 2010 the Institute of Mental Health and the Madness and Literature Network hosted this conference, the theme of which was Madness and Literature.

Outcomes and Findings

This project is now complete.

Publications

Saavedra, J., Cubero, M. & Crawford, P. (2009) Incomprehensibility in the narratives of individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia Qualitative Health Research 19 (11): 1548-1558. 

Crawford, P., Baker, C. and Brown, B. 2011. Special Edition of Mental Health Review Journal 'Health Humanities: Madness and Literature' 16: 3 'Editorial - Madness and literature' 91-92. 

Crawford, P., Baker, C. and Brown, B. 2011. Special Edition of Journal of Medical Humanities – Madness and Literature: Papers from the 1st International Health Humanities Conference 32: 4; 'Editorial - Mad Lit: Introduction to a Special Issue of Journal of Medical Humanities' 253-255. 

Baker, C – Radio Broadcast - BBC World Service Health Check Programme. Radio broadcast 9 August, 10.30 / 13.30 and 20.30, 10 August 01.30 and 15 August 22.30. Interview given regarding 1st International Health Humanities Conference. 

www.madnessandliterature.org (managed by Charley Baker) with over 500 members.

6-8 August 2010. '1st International Health Humanities Conference 2010: Madness and Literature' – University of Nottingham.