Performance, madness, and psychiatry : isolated acts
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Warwick
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 10115
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
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10.1057/9781137337252
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan UK
- ISBN
- 9781349463749
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Performance, Madness, Psychiatry: Isolated Acts emerged out of an AHRC Network grant (£43,150) for which Harpin was P.I. The international, interdisciplinary project investigated the history of performance in and about psychiatric asylums, hospitals, and care settings. The project team involved artists, academics, survivors of the mental health system, and clinicians and involved workshops, performances, seminars, exhibitions, and conferences. The resulting book reflects this diverse range of voices, experiences, and expertise. Harpin was the lead editor for the book and wrote the introduction with input from Foster. In addition to this Harpin contributed a chapter to the collection. The book has wide reach and appeal, as witnessed in reviews such as that by psychiatrist Femi Oyebode in the BMJ who described the book as a ‘tour de force’. Harpin’s aim with the volume was to place divergent voices together (patients, artists, clinicians) alongside distinct historical periods (18th century to contemporary) in conjunction with different practices (from alternative opera to political treatise) in order to examine the subject of madness and performance from plural perspectives. The result is that a reader is able to trace connections and points of radical divergence across periods, contexts, and political positions. In this sense the volume exposes a rich history with far reaching legacies and ground for further study. Moreover, in exploring performance from a number of angles (from the performativity of poetry to the role of theatre in secure hospitals to the representation of mental health on stage), Performance, Madness, Psychiatry makes a case for the significance of performance not only as a mode of doing but as a methodology for thinking about the subject of madness and mental health.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -