TRENT UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, PETERBOROUGH CAMPUS
HISTORY OF MADNESS
HIST 4800Y FALL/WINTER
2010-2011
Instructor: Prof. Janet Miron
Office: LEC S104
Office Hour: W 5-6 pm, or by appointment
Phone: (705) 748-1011
Email: janetmiron@trentu.ca
What is mental illness? How do we define the normal and the pathological? For centuries society
has grappled with these questions and still today they remain urgent, controversial, and difficult
to answer. This course will explore the history of madness from the seventeenth century to the
present day in the western world. The conditions have assumed many names and forms:
possession by devils, drapetomania, frenzy, melancholy, railway spine, kleptomania, defective,
feeble-minded, shell shock, manic-depression, mental disorder. We will seek to understand the
ways in which mental illness has been constructed by the medical profession and lay society, as
well as by those labeled mad. The treatment of mental illness, especially institutionalization, will
be a central theme, and the role of doctors will be analyzed as they evolved from mad-doctors to
psychiatrists and employed “therapies” ranging from sterilization to drugs. As a means of
exploring broader social and cultural issues, madness will be approached through a variety of
sources, including first-hand accounts from patients, advertisements, and films.
In readings, discussions, and assignments, we will explore some of the key themes and moments
in the history of madness, addressing the various ways in which academics have approached the
topic and the dominant trends and debates that have emerged. We will examine how mental
illness has been defined at different periods in time and how certain variables, including gender,
ethnicity, and class, have influenced perceptions of and treatments for insanity. The major
project of the course is a research paper, which is to be based on primary sources and an
extensive body of secondary literature. All assignments build towards this end. Class consists of
a two-hour seminar that meets on a weekly basis.
REQUIRED MATERIALS
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Canadian Scholars Press Course Kit, available through the publisher or at Trent
Bookstore
James E. Moran and David Wright, eds., Mental Health and Canadian Society:
Historical Perspectives (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press,
2006), available at Trent Bookstore
Articles and primary documents available on the internet
COURSE EVALUATION:
 Seminar Participation
 Article Questions and Discussion
 Literature Review
 Research Essay Proposal
 Research Essay
 Research Essay Presentation
20%
5%
20%
15%
30%
10%
20 October
24 November
Seminar Participation
Your presence and participation in both first and second term seminars are vital for the success
of the course, and for your success in it. Attendance will be taken and marks deducted for
unexcused absences. Students are expected to be present at EVERY seminar, to be on time, to
have done all of the reading, and to participate. Students are expected to contribute to the
discussion by raising critical questions, issues, observations, etc. You must prove that you have
completed the readings and reflected upon their significance, weaknesses, and strengths, or, in
the second term, that you have critically thought about students’ presentations. In the case of
illness or emergency students should make an effort to contact the instructor beforehand and
provide appropriate documentation. Generally, you should aim to contribute at least twice in
class to receive a grade of C or higher.
Article Questions and Discussion
Each student will be expected to lead the class discussion of one article from the syllabus.
Articles will be selected in the second week of class. Students should devise at least five
questions. The questions must be submitted to the professor by email one week before the
respective class and will then be distributed to the rest of the class. The student will be
responsible for leading the discussion for that one article. Please note: this portion of your grade
will be factored into your final grade for the course and will not be reflected in your mid-year
grade.
Literature Review
Due: 20 October
The first-term assignment is an eight to ten page historiography paper. It is a critical
examination of at least five scholarly articles that focus on a theme connected to the history of
mental illness. Although you may use them in your literature review, course readings will not
count towards the minimum five articles. Ideally, the articles you select will be related to the
topic of your second-term major research paper. Consequently, I strongly urge spending time
browsing through our syllabus and doing some research into literature on the history of mental
illness. The introduction to Wright and Moran’s collection might help generate ideas. I also
recommend speaking with me about topics you are considering.
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For this assignment, the articles should be reviewed, critiqued, and placed within their broader
historiographical context. The student must develop an argument that assesses the articles and
discusses trends, patterns, or changes in the ways in which scholars have approached a topic.
Although you must provide some summary of their contents (the author’s argument, evidence,
findings, etc), you must do more than simply describe the articles. How are the articles similar or
different? Are their foci or findings different or similar in any significant way? Are some more
convincing than others? Does one fill a void neglected by another? Does one represent a new
trend in the writing of this history? Does one represent a more conventional approach or
interpretation? What are the limitations and strengths of each? Tips on writing a single book
review are available on WebCT, which will be helpful for this assignment. However, here you
are adding a critical element by comparing at least five different works and discussing a body of
literature.
Research Essay Proposal
Due: 24 November
Students must submit a five to seven page proposal identifying and explaining the topic of the
research essay. You should inform the instructor of your topic at least two weeks before the
proposal is due. Your proposal should:
 Include a description of the topic (a possible argument, issues to be explored, etc.) and a
statement of its significance. Define your scope (time period, geographic focus, etc.) Identify the
kinds of questions you hope to explore.
 Explain the sources you will use and justify/explain your approach.
 Situate your topic in the historiography. Where does your study fit within the existing
body of literature?) How have others approached the topic?
 A bibliography of primary and secondary sources must be included (this is not counted in
the five to seven pages). Please separate the primary sources from the secondary ones and
include a one to two sentence description of each source.
The essay proposal should be in essay format. You should have completed some preliminary
primary and secondary research already to establish your topic and ensure the feasibility of your
project. I strongly recommend consulting with me about your topic before submitting the
research proposal and during the course of your research.
Research Essay
Due: one or two weeks after presentation depending on date
The second-term essay comprises the main component of the course. It is to be based on
extensive research and should be at least twenty-five pages long. It must be organized around a
strong argument, incorporate substantial primary and secondary evidence, and address the
broader historiography of the topic. The work is to be original, and thus must be based on
primary sources. The topic is to be chosen carefully by students, but must have the instructor’s
approval. When selecting a topic, you must ensure that more than adequate sources are available.
Travel to archives in southern Ontario and/or interlibrary loans may be necessary. A wealth of
material also is available on-line. At minimum, you should use at least twenty secondary sources
(academic articles and books) and aim to have roughly at least two references to primary
documents on each page of your essay. All research notes, drafts, etc. must be submitted with the
final paper. Two copies of the research paper should be submitted.
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Research Presentation
In the last part of the course, students will discuss with the class the topic of their essays and
their research findings in a presentation of approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. Presenters
should introduce the class to the broader historiography connected to the topic, outline the main
themes, and explain the significance of the research. Questions from the class will be fielded.
The schedule for presentations will be determined in January. Students will be assigned a slot
based on a draw of names. If you present on or before 9 March, your final paper will be due two
weeks after your presentation. If you present after 9 March, your paper will be due one week
after your presentation. Flexibility in deadlines will be permitted to those who present early.
DEADLINES
Deadlines are indicated on the outline. Unless there are documented extenuating circumstances,
assignments submitted late will be penalized. The penalty for late submissions will be at the rate
of 2% per day, to a maximum of two weeks, after which late papers will not be accepted.
BACKUP
Because material can be lost or questions of authorship arise, be sure to keep your essay notes
and rough drafts until after the course has been completed. Be sure also to back-up material on
computer regularly. Please note that computer or printer failure is not an acceptable excuse for
lateness or loss of material. It is the responsibility of the student to keep a copy of all submitted
work.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious academic
offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an assignment to expulsion from the
University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with plagiarism and cheating are
set out in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You have a responsibility to educate
yourself - unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse. You are strongly encouraged to visit
Trent’s Academic Integrity website to learn more - www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
ACCESS TO INSTRUCTION
It is Trent University’s intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a student has a
disability and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need accommodations to succeed
in this course, the student should contact the Disability Services Office (BL Suite 109, 748-1281,
disabilityservices@trentu.ca) as soon as possible. Complete text can be found under Access to
Instruction in the Academic Calendar.
INSTRUCTOR CONTACT
The best way to contact me is during my office hour. If you cannot make my office hour, we can
arrange to meet another time. I try my best to respond to emails within 48 hours from Monday to
Friday. If you require more than a simple “yes” or “no” response to an email, please speak with
me in person. I strongly recommend consulting with me about your topic before submitting the
research proposal and then during the course of your research. The research required for the
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final paper is very demanding – make sure you do not fall behind and please stay in contact
often.
PLEASE NOTE: Articles not in the course kit or edited collection may be retrieved through
Bata’s on-line databases, including America: History and Life and Jstor, on WebCT, or on other
web-sites. I recommend that you collect all the course materials at the beginning of the year.
FALL TERM
15 SEPTEMBER: INTRODUCTION TO COURSE
22 SEPTEMBER: SHIP OF FOOLS: MADNESS PRIOR TO THE MODERN PERIOD
Michel Foucault, “Preface” and Chapter 1, “’Stultifera Navis,’” in Madness and Civilization: A
History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage Books, 1965). Course kit.
29 SEPTEMBER: THE RISE OF THE ASYLUM
David J. Rothman, “The New World of the Asylum,” chapter 6 in The Discovery of the Asylum:
Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic, 2nd edition (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1990). Course kit.
Andrew Scull, “Museums of Madness Revisited,” The Society for the History of Medicine
(1993): 3-23. Course kit.
Thomas E. Brown, “Dance of the Dialectic?: Some Reflections (Polemic and Otherwise) on the
Present State of Nineteenth-Century Asylum Studies,” CBMH, vol. 11 (1994): 267-95. Course
kit.
6 OCTOBER: LIFE INSIDE THE ASYLUM
Danielle Terbenche, “’Curative’ and ‘Custodial’: Benefits of Patient Treatment at the Asylum for
the Insane, Kingston, 1878-1906,” in Canadian Historical Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (2005): 29-52.
Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
Geoffrey Reaume, “Patients at Work: Insane Asylum Inmates’ Labour in Ontario, 1841-1900,”
in Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives.
John S. Hughes, “Labeling and Treating Black Mental Illness in Alabama, 1861-1910,” Journal
of Southern History, vol. 58 (1992): 435-460. Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes
and WebCT.
13 OCTOBER: LIFE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE ASYLUM
Geoffrey Reaume, “Portraits of People with Mental Disorders in English Canadian History,”
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, vol. 17 (1-2): 93-125. Available through the Bata Library
on-line indexes and WebCT.
Thierry Nootens, “For Years we Have Never had a Happy Home’: Madness and Families in
Nineteenth-Century Montreal,” in Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives.
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Andre Cellard and Marie-Claude Thifault, “The Uses of Asylums: Resistance, Asylum
Propaganda, and Institutionalization Strategies in Turn-of-the-Century Quebec,” in Mental
Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives.
20 OCTOBER: DOING RESEARCH ON THE HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS:
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
*ESSAYS DUE*
Dale Peterson, editor, A Mad People’s History of Madness (University of Pittsburgh Press,
1982), selected excerpts. Course kit.
Phillipe Pinel, A Treatise on Insanity, trans. by DD Davis (Sheffield 1806): 89-102. Available
through Google Books.
“Report of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum for the Year Ending November, 1851,” Appendix to
the Eleventh Volume of the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada,
Session 1852-3, Appendix J. Available through Early Canadiana Online and on WebCT.
“Life in the NY State Lunatic Asylum; or, Extracts from the Diary of an Inmate,” American
Journal of Insanity, vol. V, no. IV (January 1849): 287-302. Available through Google Books.
WH Davenport, “Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 32,
189 (1866): 276-94. Available through Google Books and in hard-copy in Bata Library.
27 OCTOBER: READING WEEK – GET GOING ON THE PROPOSAL!!!
3 NOVEMBER: VICTORIAN ALIENISTS AND FEMALE PATIENTS
Laura Briggs, “The Race of Hysteria: ‘Overcivilization’ and the ‘Savage’ Woman in Late
Nineteenth-Century Obstetrics and Gynecology,” American Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 2 (2000):
246-273. Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
Erin O’Connor, “Pictures of Health: Medical Photography and the Emergence of Anorexia
Nervosa,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 5, no. 4 (April 1995): 535-572. Available
through the Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
Elaine S. Abelson, “The Invention of Kleptomania,” Signs, vol. 15, no. 1 (Autumn 1989): 123143. Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
10 NOVEMBER: PSYCHIATRY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
John C. Burnham, “Psychiatry, Psychology, and the Progressive Movement.” American
Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 4 (Winter 1960): 457-465. Course kit.
Roy Porter, “Two Cheers for Psychiatry! The Social History of Mental Disorder in TwentiethCentury Britain,” in 150 Years of British Psychiatry, Volume II: the Aftermath, edited by Hugh
Freeman and German E. Barrios (London: Athlone, 1996): 383-406. Course kit.
Elizabeth Lunbeck, “Psychiatry Between Old and New,” chapter 1 in The Psychiatric
Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender and Power in Modern America (New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1994). Course kit.
17 NOVEMBER: EUGENICS
Sheila Faith Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany,” Osiris, vol. 3 (1987): 193-236.
Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
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Jana Grekul et al, “Sterilizing the ‘Feeble-minded’: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929-1972,”
Journal of Historical Sociology, vol 14, no. 4 (December 2004): 358-384. Available through the
Bata Library on-line indexes and WebCT.
Ian Dowbiggin, “’Keeping This Young Country Sane’: C.K. Clarke, Immigration Restriction,
and Canadian Psychiatry, 1890-1925,” Canadian Historical Review, 1995 (vol. 76, no. 4): 598627. Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and on WebCT.
24 NOVEMBER: STERILIZATION AND POPULAR MEMORY
*RESEARCH PROPOSALS DUE*
Ralph Brave and Kathryn Sylva, “Exhibiting Eugenics: Response and Resistance to a Hidden
History,” Public Historian, vol. 29, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 33-51.
HOUR ONE: Film: The Sterilization of Leilani Muir
HOUR TWO: Discussion of Research Papers
Please come to class prepared to discuss the general topic of your research topic.
1 DECEMBER: SHELL SHOCK AND THE CRISIS OF MASCULINITY
George L. Mosse, “Shell-Shock as a Social Disease,” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 35,
no. 1, Special Issue: Shell-Shock (Jan., 2000): 101-108.
Jay Winter, “Shell-Shock and the Cultural History of the Great War,” Journal of Contemporary
History, vol. 35, no. 1, Special Issue: Shell-Shock (Jan., 2000): 7-1
John Weaver and David Wright, “Shell Shock and the Politics of Asylum Committal in New
Zealand, 1916-22,”Health and History, vol. 7, no. 1 (2005): 17-40.
WHR Rivers, “The Repression of War Experience.” Available through a variety of web-sites and
on WebCT.
8 DECEMBER: RACE, ETHNICITY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE “OTHER”
Matthew Gambino, “’These Strangers Within our Gates’: Race, Psychiatry and Mental Illness
Among Black Americans at St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, 1900-40,” History of
Psychiatry, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 2008): 387-408. Available through the Bata Library on-line
indexes and on WebCT.
Robert Menzies and Ted Palys, “Turbulent Spirits,” in Mental Health and Canadian Society:
Historical Perspectives.
WINTER BREAK – ENJOY BUT REMEMBER TO WORK ON YOUR RESEARCH
PAPER!!!
12 JANUARY: PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH IN THE POST-SECOND WORLD WAR
PERIOD
Judith Fingard and John Rutherford, “Social Disintegration, Problem Pregnancies, Civilian
Disasters,” in Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives.
Erika Dyck, “Prairie Psychedelics,” in Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical
Perspectives.
19 JANUARY: ANTI-PSYCHIATRY MOVEMENT
Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Discussion of research progress.
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26 JANUARY: DRUGS AND DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION
Lawrence C. Rubin, “Merchandizing Madness: Pills, Promises, and Better Living Through
Chemistry,” Journal of Popular Culture, 2004 (vol. 38, no. 2): 369-383. Available through the
Bata Library on-line indexes and on WebCT.
Rick Mayes, and Allan V. Horwitz, “DSM II and the Revolution in the Classification of Mental
Illness,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, (summer 2005) vol. 41, no. 3: 247267. Available through the Bata Library on-line indexes and on WebCT.
David Mechanic and David A. Rochefort, “Deinstitutionalization: An Appraisal of Reform,”
Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 16 (1990): 301-327. Available through the Bata Library online indexes and on WebCT.
2 FEBRUARY: MENTAL ILLNESS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Harvey G. Simmons, Unbalanced: Mental Health Policy in Ontario, 1930-1989 (Toronto: Wall
& Thompson, 1990) chapter 12. Course kit.
Robert Whitaker, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment
of the Mentally Ill (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002) chapter 10. Course kit.
David L. Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Science, Vol. 179 (Jan. 1973), 250-258.
Available on-line at: http://psychrights.org/articles/rosenham.htm and on WebCT
CLASSES WILL CEASE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS FOR RESEARCH PAPERS.
USE THIS TIME VERY WISELY!!! CLASSES WILL RESUME AFTER READING
BREAK FOR STUDENT PRESENTATIONS.
2 MARCH TO 30 MARCH: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
6 APRIL: CONCLUSION
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