Monthly Archives: April 2015

Hustvedt’s Burden

Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin is a novel that contains a novel and, while not as obvious as Atwood’s approach, Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World felt like a similar experience by containing a character inside a character. That is to … Continue reading

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Healing for Hudsvedt, May, Longden

I went to a conference recently and asked Hudsvedt whether she felt that the act of self-representation through writing The Shaking Woman was therapeutic. She said that writing the book was a process of “integrating the unintegratable” and that the … Continue reading

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Discussion questions, and a little simulation…

Of course this week spoke to me as a neuro person—but also as a human with a constant internal dialogue (as well as the imagined voice of my Yorkie, Madison, who sounds like Bea Arthur—please tell me I’m not the … Continue reading

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Redefining Mental Illness – The Voices in My Head

It was refreshing to read that this form of illness diagnoses and treatment is being redefined, as it should be. Dosing patients with pills, making them lethargic and more vulnerable has for far too long been against human rights. Hearing … Continue reading

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Controversial Medical/Mental Health

What I enjoy most about this weeks reading is how controversial hearing voices and mental disorder diagnosis is in society. In many instances of mental disorders, there is no, or very little, tangible or recognizable symptoms. The illness is thought … Continue reading

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the rewards and short comings of talk therapy

I loved this week’s selection of reads…Such a cry from the DSM 5 attitude toward the not so normal which sometimes, though painfully so, ends up being an enrichment to our lives as Longden affirms at the end of her … Continue reading

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Hearing voices…of readings past

I see this week’s articles and lectures as having similarities or connections, at least on an implicit level, to earlier readings in the course. An interesting question to ask in connection with voice-hearing might be what the other authors in … Continue reading

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Emily Dickinson, “The First Day’s Night Had Come” (c. 1862)

The first Day’s Night had come— And grateful that a thing So terrible—had been endured— I told my Soul to sing— She said her Strings were snapt— Her Bow—to Atoms blown— And so to mend her—gave me work Until another … Continue reading

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Ann Cvetkovich and Saidiya Hartman on Writing at CUNY!

The Practice of Writing: A Conversation with Ann Cvetkovich and Saidiya Hartman April 27, 2015 6-8pm Kelly Skylight Room The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016 Ann Cvetkovich and Saidiya Hartman will discuss their turn to … Continue reading

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Discussion Questions April, 21

The readings and pod casts for this week all speak to a variety of methods of defining, understanding, and treating severe mental illness. Mostly mental illnesses whose chief symptoms are auditory hallucinations. This spans from the deeply neurological discussion of … Continue reading

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