Reading: Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), "The Bright Side of Being Blue: Depression As An

Gareth Evans
Hon H 211
Madness and Melancholy
garevans@indiana.edu
“Madness and Melancholy” rests on the assumption that definitions of madness and
melancholy are, in Roy Porter’s words, “not fixed points but culture-relative.” While
we’ll read some contemporary discussions of how depression and other mental disorders
are treated and defined, the bulk of our reading will consist of literary, medical, and
philosophical accounts of madness and melancholy written from the classical period to
the early seventeenth-century. Our reading will be comparative and we will seek to
understand each account of madness and/or melancholy in the context in which it was
written. Instead of agreement, we will find, in every period, debate and disagreement
about how madness and melancholy should be defined and treated.
While depression and madness are now typically medicalized and pathologized, in other
periods, writers, scientists included, took an approach to melancholy and madness that
was as much, or more, religious, ethical, or philosophical as it was medical. We will see
madness and melancholy sometimes judged positively rather than negatively. We will
read writers defining madness and melancholy in relation to the bodily humors, to
gender, genius, the gods or God, love, parents, power, the planets, reason, and sin. More
often than not, these same writers are more concerned with what it means to live the good
life than they are concerned with what it means to be well. Frequently, the writers we
read are critical of the societies in which they live and of most of the people in those
societies, including those who are wealthy and have power. The class, then, has less to
say about psychology or medicine than it does about religion, moral philosophy, and the
social and political implications of madness and melancholy.
Reading
Euripides, Bacchae and Medea in Euripides, Ten Plays (Signet)

Plato, Phaedrus (Hackett)
Shakespeare, Hamlet (Arden).
Shakespeare, King Lear (Arden).
Excerpts on E-Reserve from work by the following writers: [Pseudo] Aristotle, Timothy
Bright, Robert Burton, Erasmus, Marsilio Ficino, Galen, Hildegard of Bingen,
Hippocrates, Ruth Padel, [Pseudo] Hippocrates, Seneca, Johann Weyer. The following
selection of work that illustrates issues central to the contemporary debate about the
diagnosis and treatment of depression: entries from the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), “The bright side of being blue: Depression as an
adaptation for analyzing complex problems” by Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson
Thomson, Jr., essays by Jonah Lehrer and Louis Menand, and a debate between
Christopher Lane and Nassir Ghaemi about, among other topics, the present and future of
DSM IV.
Schedule
8/30 Introduction.
9/1 Padel, Whom Gods Destroy (E). Watters, “The Americanization of Mental
Illness. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?
pagewanted=all
9/6 Euripides, Medea.
9/8 Euripides, Bacchae.
9/13 Plato, Phaedrus. Nehamas & Woodruff, “Introduction.”
9/15 Plato, Phaedrus.
9/20 Hippocrates, “The Sacred Disease”; “The Nature of Man” (E)
9/22 Galen, “The Affections and Errors of the Soul”; “The Soul’s Dependence
on the Body” (E)
9/27 WRITING WORKSHOP.
9/29 [Pseudo] Hippocrates, Pseudepigraphic Writings (E)
10/4 [Pseudo] Aristotle, Problem XXX (E); Ficino Three Books on Life (E)
10/6 Hildegard of Bingen, Holistic Healing (E); Weyer, Witches, Devils, and
Doctors in the Renaissance (E)
Essay 1 due.
10/11 Class meets at Wells Library.
10/13 Class meets at Lilly Library.
10/18 DSM IV, “Mood Disorders”; “Antisocial Personality Disorder.”
Library Exercise Due.
10/20 Louis Menand, “Head Case.”
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/01/100301crat_atlar
ge_menand
DSM IV, “Social Phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder).”
Author Interviews: Christopher Lane.
http://writerinterviews.blogspot.com/2008/01/christopher-lane.html
Nassir Ghaemi. “The power of words: the disorder of ‘disorder.’”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mood-swings/201007/the-power-
words-the-disorder-disorder
Christopher Lane. “The More Things Change . . . The Uphill Struggle to
Revise and Reform the DSM.” http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-
effects/201007/the-more-things-change-the-uphill-struggle-revise-and-
reform-the-dsm
Nassir Ghaemi. “DSM and disease: Telling the whole truth.”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mood-swings/201007/dsm-and-
disease-telling-the-whole-truth
Christopher Lane. “DSM and Disease: Dr. Ghaemi’s Partial Answer.”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201007/dsm-and-
disease-dr-ghaemis-partial-answer
10/25 Andrews & Thomson, “The Bright Side of Being Blue.” Download at
http://sites.google.com/site/paulwandrewsphd/
10/27 Jonah Lehrer, Jerry Coyne, and Ed Hagen on Andrews & Thomson. Links
at: http://sites.google.com/site/paulwandrewsphd/
11/1 WRITING WORKSHOP.
11/3 Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. (E)
Essay 2 due
11/8 Seneca, On Anger (E); DSM IV, “Borderline Personality Disorder”;
“Intermittent Explosive Disorder”
11/10 Shakespeare, Hamlet. Excerpt from Bright, “Treatise on Melancholy” (E).
Hamlet and melancholy; Hamlet and anger.
11/15 Shakespeare, Hamlet. Excerpt from Erasmus, Praise of Folly (E). Hamlet
and folly.
11/17 Shakespeare, King Lear. Lear and anger.
11/ 22 Shakespeare, King Lear. Lear and folly.
Revised essay due.
THANKSGIVING
11/29 Individual 5 minute presentations of thesis and argument of final essay.
Please provide a 1 page abstract for every member of the class.
12/8 Evaluations
Essay 3 due.
Note: The schedule and syllabus are subject to change.
Writing Requirements and Grades
• Essays 1 and 2 must be a minimum of 4-6 typed, double-spaced pages in length,

while the revised essay and essay 3 must both be a minimum of 6-8 typed,
double-spaced pages in length. The revised essay and the third essay you submit
must include use of and reference to secondary, critical sources. A hard copy of
each of the essays must be submitted to me on paper.
• A graded exercise designed to display your ability to find and use information in
the university library catalog, WorldCat, Online Full-Text Journals, and a number
of subject-specific online databases. 10% of the final grade.
• 10% of your grade will depend on class participation. Students who rarely or
never participate in class discussion receive a C for class participation. A C for
class participation typically means a student who averages B on his or her essays
gets a B- for the class. An A for class participation and on the library exercise
typically means a student who averages B on his or her essays gets a B+ for the
class.
• On every day you don’t have an essay due, you will either bring to class a
typewritten response to one of the reading questions posted at Oncourse, or I will
ask you to write a ten minute in class response to one of the reading questions
posted at Oncourse. Class discussion on those days will sometimes be driven by
the responses you write. I’ll collect your typewritten responses at the end of each
session and redistribute them within a week of their submission. Your responses
count towards class participation. Your final grade for the class will drop by
1/3 of a grade every time you don’t bring a response to class with you.
• 5% of your grade will depend on the 5-minute presentation, accompanied by
essay abstract, you give close to the end of the semester. The grade for the
assignment will be determined by the students in the class, though on some
occasions when all students give a student an A I may change that grade.
• You must fulfill all of the requirements to receive a passing grade in the class.
Essay 1 15%
Essay 2 15%
Essay 3 20%
Revised essay 25%
Library research exercise 10%
Class Participation 10%
Essay abstract 5%
• All essays must be exercises in criticism and analysis. Essays will be graded on
form as well as content. I place a great deal of emphasis on writing skills and
only those students with exceptional writing skills can expect to receive an A in
this class.

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What are the main texts and topics that will be covered in the course?

What are the main writing assignments and their relative weights?

Gareth Evans

Euripides, Bacchae and Medea in Euripides, Ten Plays (Signet)

Note: The schedule and syllabus are subject to change.

Writing Requirements and Grades

• Essays 1 and 2 must be a minimum of 4-6 typed, double-spaced pages in length,

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