The Department of Classics, Philosophy and Religious Studies continues a series of lectures called “Mysterium Hunanum Studies: Madness” during spring semester. This series explores a variety of ways of representing and understanding madness. As an iteration of Mysterium Humanum Studies, the lectures dwell on topics of central importance to human existence that we ordinarily take for granted, and provides an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by the notion, and how the phenomenon has manifested itself across human history.
The sessions are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. in Room 201 of Trinkle Hall. See below for the list of upcoming lectures:
Feb. 5: Unstable Minds, Unstable Beliefs: Heretics in Late Antiquity Jennifer Barry (Religious Studies)
Feb. 12: Are Racists Crazy? Sander Gilman (Emory University)
Feb. 19: “The Flag of Imagination”: The Surrealists and artists on the schizophrenia spectrum Julia DeLancey (Art History)
Feb. 26: Love as divine madness (Plato’s Phaedrus) David Ambuel (Philosophy)
March 12: Divine Madness: Antinomian Sufis in Islamic Mysticism Mehdi Aminrazavi (Religious Studies)
March 19: Musical Interpretations of Love and Madness in the Persian Epic Leili o Majnun Theresa Steward (Music
March 26: Descartes and the Madness Argument August Gorman
April 2: Crazy Wisdom? Enlightened Iconoclasm in Tibet, Guru Sex Scandals in the West. Daniel Hirshberg (Religious Studies)
April 9: Psychographics: Graphic Memoirs and Psychiatric Disability Elizabeth Donaldson (English, New York Institute of Technology)
April 16: “They Called Me Crazy”: The Mad Scientist Trope and Pushing the Boundaries of Knowledge. Leanna Giancarlo (Chemistry)
April 23: An Existential Approach to Madness. Craig Vasey (Philosophy)
