History of Madness and Psychiatry

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture/Seminar) This course explores the different ways in which mental health and illness have been imagined, theorized, classified, and treated in the Western world from Antiquity to the present. The course looks at the lived experiences of people deemed to be "mad", and considers the philosophy and practices of those who attempted to treat madness, including psychiatrists. The course shows how intellectual, social, cultural, political, technological and other factors have interacted over the centuries to produce complex and ever-changing views of mental health and illness.