Concept and Organization:
Giulia Dossi (Harvard University) and
Riccardo Nicolosi (Munich University)
This event will take place online with Zoom.
Please register by emailing: giuliadossi@g.harvard.edu
Program
March 5, 2021 18:00 (CET)
Presenter: Giulia Dossi (Harvard University)
Paper: Limits of Readability in Early Russian Psychiatry
Abstract: In this presentation, I examine psychiatric case histories from the period in which this discipline was first emerging in Russia (1840s–1880s), a period of great diversity of structure and content in psychopathological studies, when external influences, including that of literature, were rather conspicuous. At this time, both psychiatry and literature had to confront their limits in accessing interiority, especially when dealing with affective inadequacy and contradiction. I highlight the central role of emotional illegibility in both disciplines. I will present examples from an archive of psychiatric case histories in which patients are depicted as having illegible and inadequate emotional lives. More importantly, “healthy” people are portrayed as incapable of bridging the affective divide that separates them from the mentally ill. The psychiatrist finds herself caught in the middle, as awkward narrator, or translator, of an affective experience that she herself cannot fully read.
Discussant: Yuri Corrigan (Boston University)
March 11 (Thursday!), 2021 18:00 (CET)
Presenter: Matthew Mangold (George Mason University)
Paper: Chekhov’s Suggestive Prose
Abstract: This paper will investigate the role suggestion plays in the case histories and early short stories of Anton Chekhov. Suggestion was investigated as a psychological phenomenon in connection to hysteria in late nineteenth century medicine, but its implications extend beyond this illness to basic conceptions of how humans negotiate their social, psychological, and physical lives. I argue that Chekhov makes suggestion and its implications core features of his medical and literary writing, allowing him to create complex works that appear simple and compact.
Discussant: Michael C. Finke (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
March 19, 2021 18:00 (CET)
Presenter: Alexey Vdovin (HSE Moscow)
Paper: Правдоподобие аффектов: современная физиология, прозрачное мышление и читаемое тело у позднего Тургенева
Abstract: Многие русские писатели пристально следили за открытиями естественных наук и физиологии в частности, часто полемически реагируя на резонансные теории. Иван Тургенев после "Отцов и детей" не только не потерял интереса к физиологии, но и удвоил его. В докладе я рассмотрю обостренный интерес Тургенева к физиологии в конце 1860-х - 1870-е годы, общение с известными физиологами того времени, а главное -- влияние физиологии на стиль и повествовательную технику его поздних текстов. В центре внимания окажется повесть "Степной король Лир" (1870), в которой представлена не характерная для раннего Тургенева техника чтения повествователем телесных аффектов героев и физиологизация эмоций. В заключение будет обоснована гипотеза, что такой способ репрезентации может быть сопоставлен с теорией аффектов в физиологии 1870--80-х годов.
Discussant: Valeria Sobol (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
March 26, 2021 18:00 (CET)
Presenter: Natalia Vygovskaia (Brown University)
Paper: ''Mad'' Affair: Female Homosexuality as a Psychiatric Case and an Ethical Dilemma in the Medical Journal ''Vrach'' (1898)
Abstract: The paper analyzes doctor's Rybakov's article ''About perverse sexual sensations'' (O prevratnykh polovykh oshchushcheniiakh) from the widely circulated medical journal ''Vrach'' in Russia in the late nineteenth century. The article, published in two parts in the sequential issues, presents a hybrid genre of a scientific paper and a love story. The author uses the patient's diary as evidence to support his argument about her neurological disorder. The reader can witness the narrator's conflicted attitude. On the one hand, he tries to reconcile his view of the patient's behavior as an act of female indecency with seeing it as the tragedy of hidden romance. On the other, the doctor wants to diagnose his patient and treat the ''abnormality.'' In my presentation, I seek to answer the following questions: How does the doctor's intention to label the body and present a case description agree with his perception of it? How does Rybakov's ambiguous interpretation of the case affect scientific argumentation?
Discussant: Melissa Miller (University of Notre Dame)
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