IDS 3932: Mental Disorders in Film
ICIS Seminar
Laura Vernon lvernon@fau.edu WB 219, Office hours: T &
R 2:45-3:45
Daniel White dwhite@fau.edu
HC 146, Office Hours: T & R 2:45 3:45
Summer A,
2008
Course Overview:
This course is designed to
explore the “psychological disorders” as they are revealed in classic and
popular film from the perspectives of clinical psychology, philosophy, and
interdisciplinary critical theory. Films will be studied as “media texts”
composed of various elements which can be interpreted from multiple
perspectives. Thus we will examine each film text in terms of abnormal
psychology (the kind of mental disorder it seems to exemplify: multiple
personalities, paranoia, schizophrenia, etc.) as well as from the perspective
of philosophy and critical theory. Philosophers or critical theorists might
ask: beyond the concept of “mental disorder” what alternative ways might be
invoked to describe the same characters, plot, images, etc.; e.g., what are the
humanistic, existential, gendered, and agonistic dimensions of meaning not
necessarily exhausted by psychological analysis; who is a “psychologist” and by
what “reason” does s/he “diagnose” and “treat” a “disorder”? Could an android,
say Mr. Data, serve as “psychotherapist” or as a “philosopher”? Further, what are the social, cultural,
institutional, and historical dimensions of “mental patients” and
“mental-health practitioners”? Thus whether you are a film buff, a nascent
psychologist or philosopher or social theorist, or pre-professionally
undecided, you should find ample space for critical interpretation, discussion,
and learning. As this is an Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry Seminar, your
full participation in the round of course activities and assignments is
essential. In a typical class session
(or T/R pair of sessions) we will view a film together, you will write a brief
response (300-500 words) to it in light of the assigned readings, and our
discussion will ensue based on what you’ve written. As the term proceeds, you
will break down into groups. Each group will give a presentation in which
members will select a film to show (selected clips) to the class for
presentation and analysis. This will be your definitive discussion and critique
of a “mental disorder” in a film text in light of the kinds of critical
perspectives studied in the course. Based on your presentation, you will submit
a final essay (1,500 words) in which you provide an analysis of the same film
text from at least two distinct perspectives (including abnormal psychology and
either philosophy or critical theory), drawing your own conclusions. You are
the critical discussants; you are the scholars. We are here as catalysts and as
guides as we enter into a complex interdisciplinary territory. Please see Assignments and Grades below for
specific upcoming tasks.
Required Texts:
Comer, Ronald J. Abnormal
Psychology 6th edition (If you have not taken/do not plan to take Abnormal
Psychology, you may substitute: Alan Car, -
Abnormal Psychology eBook)
Foucault, Michel. Madness
& Civilization
Haraway, Donna. Simians,
Cyborgs, and Women
Skinner, B.F. Walden
Two
Yale Film Analysis Guide
online only
Required
Bateson, Gregory, “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1987), pp. 279-308 (in MyFAU Files for this course).
---. “Conscious Purpose Versus Nature,” Steps to an Ecology of Mind, pp. 432-445 (in MyFAU Files for this course).
Chomsky, Noam. "Psychology and Ideology." Cognition 1 (1972): 11-46 (in MyFAU Files for this course).
Required Films:
The
Birds (1963)
The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921)
Girl
Interrupted (2000)
Lars
and the Real Girl (2007)
Memento
(2000)
Reference Films:
The Chomsky-Foucault
Debate [excerpt, part 1/1]
Justice Vs. Power - Chomsky Vs. Foucault, Part 2
Wikipedia
List of Films & Mental Illness
Film List with Associated Mental
Disorders
Other websites that might prove useful for film
analysis:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/film_resources.html
http://filmguide.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Assignements & Grades:
1)
A
series of in-class critical responses to films based on readings = 40% of final
grade
2)
Class
attendance and active participation = 10% of final grade
3)
Group
presentation = 25% of final grade
4) Final essay = 25% of final grade (submitted in duplicate, one copy for each professor)
Notes:
--Responses may be assigned in any class session,
announced or unannounced.
--Essays will be graded both for quality of English
composition and for content (though expectations are different for in-class and
final essays).
Grading symbols for grammar and mechanics; also see Dr. Weisser’s online composition handbook at: http://wise.fau.edu/~weisser/handbook.htm.
a/p = “active or passive voice
cs = “comma splice”
dm
= “dangling modifier”
d/wc =
“diction” or “word choice”
doc = “documentation
style”
frag =
“sentence fragment”
ital =
“use italics”
m = “mood” (indicative, subjunctive,
interrogative, imperative)
mm = “misplaced modifier”
pa = “pronoun-antecedent agreement” or PR “pronoun
reference””
rep = “repetition”
subj =
“subjunctive”
sv =
“subject-verb agreement”
t
= “verb tense” (either the
wrong tense or an inappropriate tense shift)
Sequence of
Assignments
Week 1: May 13-15
T Film: The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921); History of the
Film
Comer, Chapter 1
Foucault: Preface and Chapter 1, “Stultifera Navis,” pp. 3-38; Foucault’s images: Breugel the Elder, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The ‘Cripples’ [Lepers] 1568; Mathias Grūnewald,
Temptation of Saint
Anthony, second
view, from the Isenheim
Altarpiece 1512-1516; Hieronymus Bosch’s Works, Ship of Fools
(painting) 1490-1500;
Albrecht Dürer: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1497-1498
R Film: Dr.
Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920); History of the
Film; History & Analysis
Comer, Chapter 7 (Dissociative Disorders only)
Foucault, Chapters 2-3, “The Great
Confinement, “The Insane,” pp. 38-84; ‘mad’ and ‘poor’: William Hogarth William
Hogarth, Beer Street and Gin Lane 1751; A Rake's Progress (see final
scene, “Bedlam”)
Week 2: May: 20-22
T Film: A
Beautiful Mind (2001)
Comer, Chapter 14, Schizophrenia
Foucault, Chapters 4-5, “Passion &
Delirium,” “Aspects of Madness,” pp. 85-158
R Film: Lars
and the Real Girl (2007)
Comer, Chapter 15, Schizophrenia Treatment
Foucault, Chapter 6, “Doctors
& Patients,” pp. 183-186; Chapters 8-9, “The New Division,” “The
Birth of the Asylum,” pp. 221-278; recommended, Gregory Bateson et al., “Toward
a Theory of
Schizophrenia” (see Course Homepage at MyFAU)
Week 3: May 27-29
T Film: Girl
Interrupted (2000); Film Summary
Comer, Chapter 16, Personality Disorders
Skinner, pp. 1-76
Chomsky, “Psychology & Ideology,”
complete (download & print file from Course Homepage in MyFAU)
Bateson, “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” (Course
Homepage, MyFAU)
R Film: Justice Vs. Power -
Chomsky Vs. Foucault, Part 1; Justice Vs. Power -
Chomsky Vs. Foucault, Part 2
Comer, Chapter 3, Models of Abnormality
Skinner, pp. 77-145; Bateson, “A Theory of
Play and Fantasy” (see Course Homepage, MyFAU)
Haraway, Introduction, pp. 1-4, chapter 3,
“The Biological Enterprise: Sex, Mind, and Profit from Human Engineering to
Sociobiology,” pp. 43-
68; Chapter 4, “In the Beginning was the
Word: the Genesis of Biological Theory,” pp. 71-80
Week 4 June 3-5
T Film: Memento
Comer, Chapter 18, Disorders of Aging
Skinner, pp. 146-226
Haraway, Chapter 8, “A Cyborg Manifesto:
Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the late Twentieth Century” pp.
149-179
R Film: The Birds : “mental disorders” beyond the boundaries of “the human”:
toward an “ecology of mind”; Bateson, “Conscious Purpose versus Nature” (Course
Homepage, MyFAU)
Comer, Chapter 6, Stress Disorders
Skinner, pp.227-301
Haraway, Chapter 10, “The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Constitutions of Self in
Immune System Discourse,” pp. 203-230
Week
5: June 10-12
T Group
Presentations
R Group
Presentations
Week 6: June 17-19
T Group
Presentations
R Final Essays Due: must be submitted in
duplicate (one copy for each professor)
Group
Presentations
