Date of Submission

Spring 2011

Academic Program

Literature

Advisor

Benjamin LaFarge

Abstract/Artist's Statement

What is Madness? What does it mean to be crazy? These questions have always been too difficult to answer because there is no way to define madness objectively, only through a subjective, cultural lens. There was a time when the mad existed among the sane in society and were treated as equals; however, these days are gone. Instead the mad or “mentally” ill are locked up and mentally oppressed through degradation and reliance on psychiatric medication that only silence the mind and exacerbate mental illness. In my project I will discuss the moment in time in which the mad were first controlled and oppressed to show that nothing has really changed from the times of torturous asylums to the psychiatrists’ offices of today. Madness is still "cured" through gratuitous torture of the mind and addiction of the body.

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