The College of Arts and Sciences
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| February 2009 | ||
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Feb 17 |
“What is Political Islam?” Abstract: My talk will give a definition of political Islam (also called Islamism) and attempt to describe its major tenets. I shall argue that political Islam, far from being the menacing monolith often invoked in superficial analyses, is broken into various strains and numerous individual groups and movements. I shall describe three major strains of political Islam, including Shi’a political Islam and two strains of Sunni political Islam, reformist and radical. I shall focus on the major Sunni groups and movements, both reformist and radical and attempt to assess the threat level posed by them to the US and to US interests. The lecture will begin at 3:30 and is free and open to the public. Click here to listen to Part One of the lecture. |
109 Grubbs Hall |
| April 2009 | ||
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Apr 23 |
“How Clinical Depression Affected the Creative Process of Three Women Writers: There has been a great deal of mystery surrounding mental illness and creative writers. For centuries, mental illness has been romanticized as part of a true artist’s character. Certainly there is a long list of writers who battled mental illness for most of their lives, while still producing great art. Psychiatry has debated the connection between mental illness and creativity for years. In 1996, the psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison wrote a bestselling book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, in which she argues that the highs from bipolar disorder may have energized the creative processes of writers like Lord Byron and Virginia Woolf. But what about clinical depression, which has no highs and instead induces symptoms that seem to go in the opposite direction of creativity: lethargy, consistent melancholy, and mental slowness? How can a writer, no matter how gifted, be trapped in this illness and still create great art? This is even more of a question in the 19th century, when patients had no access to effective medication, and untreated depression tended to worsen over time. To approach this question, I’m studying three women writers who all battled clinical depression: Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, and Florence Nightingale. Mary Shelley ( 1797-1851), the author of Frankenstein, spent most of her life in a state of suicidal depression, but was still able to support herself as a novelist, and wrote a novel, The Last Man, which is considered a classic in science fiction. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) wrote her last, great novel, Villette, while fighting a depressive state that made it almost impossible for her to function. And Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), though known now as the founder of modern nursing, suffered several mental breakdowns as a young woman. It was only after she wrote her feminist treatise, Cassandra, that she was able to find an effective way to fight her family’s objections, and begin what was then a scandalous career as a nurse. Though Nightingale, before and after her time in the Crimea, fought against severe mental illness and physical collapse, she was able to write the nursing texts and pursue the activism that founded her profession. In the presentation, I will focus on the writers during the years they produced art under tremendous mental stress: Mary Shelley with The Last Man, Charlotte Brontë with Villette, and Florence Nightingale with Cassandra. In discussing this topic, I’ll be integrating information from a variety of disciplines: medical history for the treatment of depression in 19th century Britain, creativity studies, current scientific knowledge on depression, literature, biography, feminism, and the history of nursing. The presentation will also include slides that will help the audience understand current knowledge of mental illness, and its treatment in the 19th century. Susan Anne Carlson has been a professor in the English Department at Pittsburg State University since 1991. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. at The Ohio State University, and spent a year as a Fulbright Lecturer in Eskisehir, Turkey. Her research on Victorian women writers has been published in several journals, including Brontë Transactions. A chapter on Charlotte Brontë’s juvenilia was published as a chapter of the book entitled Creating Safe Space: Violence and Women’s Writing. The lecture will begin at 3:30 and is free and open to the public. Click here to listen to a recording and view the slide presentation of this lecture. |
109 Grubbs Hall |