Surrealist writer André Breton praised hysteria for being the greatest poetic discovery of the nineteenth century, but many physicians have since viewed it as the "wastebasket of medicine," a psychosomatic state that defies attempts at definition and cure and that can be easily mistaken for other pathological conditions. In light of a resurgence of critical interest in hysteria, leading feminist scholar Elisabeth Bronfen reinvestigates medical writings and cultural performance to reveal the continued relevance of a disorder widely thought to be a romantic formulation of the past. Through a critical rereading, she develops a new concept of hysteria, one that challenges traditional gender-based theories linking it to dissatisfied feminine sexual desire. Bronfen turns instead to hysteria's traumatic causes, particularly the fear of violation, and shows how the conversion of psychic anguish into somatic symptoms can be interpreted today as the enactment of personal and cultural discontent.Tracing the development of cultural formations of hysteria from the 1800s to the present, this book explores the writings of Freud, Charcot, and Janet together with fictional texts (Radcliffe, Stoker, Anne Sexton), opera (Mozart, Wagner), cinema (Cronenberg, Hitchcock, Woody Allen), and visual art (Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Cindy Sherman). Each of these creative works attests to a particular relationship between hysteria and self-fashioning, and enables us to read hysteria quite literally as a language of discontent. The message broadcasted by the hysteric is one of vulnerability: vulnerability of the symbolic, of identity, and of the human body itself.Throughout this work, Bronfen not only offers fresh approaches to understanding hysteria in our culture, but also introduces a new metaphor to serve as a theoretical tool. Whereas the phallus has long dominated psychoanalytical discourse, the image of the navel--a knotted originary wound common to both genders--facilitates discussion of topics relevant to hysteria, such as trauma, mortality, and infinity. Bronfen's insights make for a lively, innovative work sure to interest readers across the fields of art and literature, feminism, and psychology.Originally published in 1998.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.

Product Description: Originally published in 1991 as part of the Tavistock Classics in the History of Psychiatry series, this re-edition of J-M. Charcot’s Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System provides a unique opportunity to examine the work of one of the last century’s most controversial and admired physicians...read more

Product Description: Este libro narra y cuestiona las prácticas en torno a la histeria que se llevaron a cabo en la Salpê,triè,re en época de Charcot. A través de procedimientos clínicos y experimentales, por medio de la hipnosis y las presentaciones de enfermas en estado de crisis (las célebres lecciones de los martes), descubr...read more

Product Description: The current diversity in psychoanalytic theories of hysteria has confused our understanding of the concept. Matrix of Hysteria offers a new perspective, which draws on previous theories to present a clear and cohesive view of the theoretical and clinical aspects of hysteria...read more

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Product Description: This worthy successor to Juliet Mitchell's pathbreaking Psychoanalysis and Feminism is both a defense of the long-dismissed diagnosis of hysteria as a centerpiece of the human condition and a plea for a new understanding of the influence of sibling and peer relationships...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: A century after it was written, Breuer and Freudís Studies on Hysteria continues to challenge. In Storms in Her Head, many of todayís most renowned psychoanalysts and cultural theorists revisit the cases it contains, reflecting on how six suffering women continue to engage us with problems of theory and practice...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Hysteria has disappeared from contemporary culture only insofar as it has been subjected to a repression through the popular diagnosis of 'borderline personality disorder'.In Hysteria the distinguished psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas offers an original and illuminating theory of hysteria that weaves its well-known features - repressed sexual ideas; indifference to conversion; over-identification with the other - into the hysteric form...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This study describes the creative process of generating the ensemble performance work, "Dr. Charcot's Hysteria Shows", including the use of Labanotation and group improvisations in decoding the body language of 19th-century hysterics at the Salpetriere, with interpolations from Freud's case histories...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)