Hysterical Methodologies in the Arts

Hysteria is alive and well in our present time and is apparently spreading contagiously: especially the second decade of the twenty-first century has displayed an ever-increasing interest in the term. A quick Google search opens the gates to sheer endless swathes of discussions on hysteria, covering almost every aspect of public discourses. The artsas it is often in such casesseem conspicuously involved in and engaged with this hysterical discourse. Surprisingly, while the strong academic interest in hysteria throughout the twentieth century and most prominently at the turn of the century is well known and much discussed, the study of how these discourses have continued well into twenty-first-century art practices, is largely pressing on a blind spot. It is the aim of this volume to illustrate how hysteria was already well established within the arts alongside and at times even separately from the much-covered medical studies, and reveal how those current artistic practices very much continue a century spanning cross-fertilization between hysteria and the arts.

Brings together some of the leading scholars working in the field today, including Elisabeth Bronfen, Hélène Cixous, and Anna Furse Examines the cultural relevance of the representation of hysteria in contemporary media Analyzes hysteria as a cultural phenomenon in historical context and as an analytical concept from a variety of disciplines

Autorentext

Johanna Braun is an artist, scholar, curator, and Principle Investigator of the postdoctoral research project "The Hysteric as Conceptual Operator" [J 4164-G24], sponsored by the Austrian Science Funds [FWF], and situated at the University of California, Los Angeles, Stanford University and the University of Vienna (2018-2020).

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Searching for Methods in this Madness; Johanna Braun.- 2. L'Arc de Cercle, or the Movement of Modernism (1620-2020); Nathan J. Timpano.- 3. Hysterias in Pictures; Anna Furse.- 4. From Private Theatres Onstage to Anti-Hysterical Performances: Reclaiming the Feminist Interest in Hysterical Performances since the 1990s; Tanya Augsburg.- 5. State of Anxiety: Hysterical Studies for Reproduction Struggles; Elke Krasny.- 6. Hysteria, Turning a Diagnosis into a Call; Mette Kjærgaard Præst.- 7. To Arc, and Other Studies on Hysterical Gesturing; Cindy Rehm and Johanna Braun.- 8. The Other Self of Imagination: Cindy Sherman's Hysterical Performance; Elisabeth Bronfen.- 9. Hysterical Representation in the Art of Mary Sibande; Anne Scheffer, Ingrid Stevens and Amanda du Preez.- 10. A Storm in a Teacup, and other minor melodramas: Narratives of Containment and Excess in cultured colonies / colonial cultures; Leora Farber.- 11. Making Ghosts Heard; Laura González.- 12. Hysterical Aesthetics in Contemporary Performance: Theatre, Dance, Voice; Jonathan W. Marshall.- 13. H. Y. S. T. et al, on Archiving Hysteria's Past in the Present; Shana Lutker and Johanna Braun.- 14. Male Hysteria and the Archive: An Auto-Ethnographic Reflection; Thomas Ballhausen.- 15. Notes on Hysteria in and as Arts-based Research; a Case Study; Johanna Braun.- 16. Dora with Medusa: Is Hysterical Writing a Subversive Revolution?; Elisabeth Schäfer.- 17. Lecture Performance: On Truth and its Relation to the Cellar Regions of the Body; Arno Boehler and Susanne Valerie Granzer.- 18. Via Telefaune; a Phone Call with Hélène Cixous; Helene Cixous and Elisabeth Schäfer.