Writing Madness, Writing Normalcy

Lisa Spieker is a teacher in the field of political education in Essen, Germany with a focus on diversity, gender studies and hate speech.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Writing about Madness: Terminology

The Stigma of Madness

The Confessional Mode

Part I: ­Self-Fashioning as Normal (Again) and as Mad

Dealing with Discredit

Chapter One. ­Self-Fashioning as Normal (Again)

Relativization and Claims to Essential Normalcy

Normalization and Depathologization

Narratives of Transformation

Religious Conversion Narratives

Secular Conversion Narratives

Narratives of ­Self-Making

Chapter Two. ­Self-Fashioning as Mad

Complicating Madness and Identity Politics

The Humor in Madness

Madness as Suffering

Madness and Gothic Horror

Part II: Objective and Subjective Truth

Chapter Three. Producing Objective Truth

Writing for “the Own”: Literacy and Meaning-Making

Writing for “Normals”: Reliability and Voyeuristic Pleasures

Writing for Psychiatrists: ­Self-Specification and Case Histories

Chapter Four. Producing Subjective Truth

The Use of Pronouns and Narrative Situations

Defamiliarized Narratives

Defamiliarizing Uses of Language

Confessing Madness: Truth and Sexuality

Madness as Abject Corporality

Conclusion

Chapter Notes

Works Cited

Index