Psychologists and cultural historians typically have argued that early modern theologians such as Martin Luther, John Bunyan, and Ignatius Loyola exhibited behavior that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) classifies as a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder termed "religious scrupulosity." This essay argues that, although early modern theologians do manifest scrupulosity, such religiosity was a culturally acceptable, even recommended component of spiritual progress, a necessary means of receiving an unmerited bestowal of God's grace. The larger aim of the essay is to point out some of the limitations of current DSM criteria when attempting retrospectively to diagnose historical figures with mental pathology.
Why has compulsive hoarding recently captured the American imagination? To what extent is hoarding a subtype of OCD or a discrete "disorder" in its own right? Can a cultural-studies and philosophical assessment of hoarding complement the medical model that has recently been offered by clinicians and the DSM IV? This essay tracks these and related questions in order to offer a theory of compulsive hoarding that pays particular attention to the sometimes distorted representation of hoarding in literature and the mainstream media.
As the cognitive revolution has begun heavily to influence Shakespeare and early modern studies, related critical methodologies such as psychoanalytic criticism have begun to seem provincial, outworn, or, in some more hostile quarters, simply misdirected. If we are indeed living through a cognitive revolution and “age of the brain,” the time seems appropriate to revisit psychoanalytic criticism, not in order to displace, but rather to supplement, the application of brain science to literary analysis.
This book represents the first attempt to bring together cognitive and psychoanalytic criticism, through a startling new analysis of Iago’s character. Iago is a recalcitrant literary figure and neither cognitive nor psychoanalytic theory alone can explain our strange, embarrassed kinship with him, nor the unique ways in which Iago’s very staging of his own catharsis prevents a full purgation of our pity and fear.
Through looking at both critical methodologies, Paul Cefalu opens up new insights into the mechanisms of tragic identification and catharsis within Othello.
During the past several decades, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been widely represented in novels, memoirs, film, television, and other genres and media. What distinguishes representations of OCD from depictions of other mental disorders is the frequency with which OCD is treated with humor and levity. Drawing on genre theory, disability studies, and philosophies of humor, this essay explains why OCD symptomatology evokes laughter and resonates with contemporary popular culture. The essay focuses on the ways in which popular portrayals of OCD distort the actual experience of the disorder.
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