Madness Art and Society

<p>How is madness made experienced and treated? How might art think around - and beyond - psychiatric definitions of illness and wellbeing? <i></p> <p>Madness Art and Society </i>engages with artistic practices from theatre and live art to graphic fiction charting a multiplicity of ways of thinking critically <i>with</i> rather than <i>about</i> non-normative psychological experience. It is organised into two parts: </p> <ul> <p> <li>'Psychiatrists Institutions Treatments' which illuminates the environments figures and primary models of psychiatric care reconsidering their history and contemporary manifestations through case studies including David Edgar's <i>Mary Barnes </i>and Milos Forman's <i>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.</li> <p></p></i> <p> <li>'Realities Bodies Moods' which rejects diagnostic categories in favour of a radical openness to the diversity of madness touching upon works such as Richard Kelly's <i>Donnie Darko </i>and Duncan Macmillan's <i>People Places and Things</i>.</li> <p></p></ul> <p>Reading its case studies as a form of protest literature <i>Madness Art and Society </i>seeks a more nuanced understanding of the plurality of madness in contemporary art and society and in so doing offers an outstanding resource for students and scholars alike. </p>