Madness and Mental Illness in Chinese Literature: A Contribution to Cross-Cultural Medical Humanities

Description

This research project investigates representations of madness in Chinese literature and puts the findings into the context of comparative literary studies and cross-cultural Medical Humanities. In the West, the theme has long been recognized as an essential inquiry into the human mind in conflict, and the medical and popular engagements with madness have continuously attracted diligent inquiry and artistic expression. New insights into and education about the nature of mental illnesses have intensified this nexus between literature and medicine, particularly with regard to narrative modes of cognitive and affective disorders. In China, too, there is a growing awareness of psychological conflict and mental disorders that find resonance in literature. Until now, no systematic research has been conducted on the theme of madness in the modern and contemporary Chinese context, and even less in the field of Medical Humanities. A key question this research seeks to address is how madness is expressed in fiction and poetry, and how these representations reflect back upon cultural and medical perceptions. While the Western traditions link madness to creative genius, religious guilt, trauma, romantic singularity, and psycholinguistics, Chinese literature predominantly represents madness as an articulation of historical and personal trauma. Representations of actual mental illness are still rare in Chinese literature, and many of the texts that are central to the theme have not been translated into English. Hence, the purpose of this study is twofold: to illustrate how madness functions as a literary symbol, and to demonstrate how such writing enhances our understanding of mental distress and illness experiences from a Chinese perspective.The inquiry draws on some existing scholarship (Messner 2000, Ng 1990, Schneider 1980, Chan 2001, Chen 2003, Meng and Xu 1993) to provide an overview over the historical concepts of madness and mental illness in China, and, thus contextualized, explores contemporary representations of madness within the critical context of trauma theory, psychoanalytical theories, narratological theories, and comparative literature. In addition, this study looks at literature as a potential source for an understanding of psychological distress, adding to the literary approach the perspective of the Medical Humanities. A second part of this project consists of translations of key texts from Chinese into English. Together, research and translations contribute new knowledge to the fields of Chinese literature and cross-cultural Medical Humanities. This project also facilitates collaboration with non-Chinese speakers in the field and adds important materials to courses taught on Madness and Literature.