Tag: anxiety
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The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Carol-Ann Farkas Boston, Massachusetts, United States The Goldfinch By Carel Fabritius. 1654. Mauritshuis. Public Domain. Wikimedia. I. Diagnostically speaking, the “nervous” or “mental” breakdown is not a thing. The term has never been formally used in psychology, which has long preferred specific, definable categorizations of symptoms and conditions: stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma.1 And yet…
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Ignes Fatui of the neurotic mind
Ashten R. Duncan Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States Rocking in my vessel sturdy Upon the waters of a swamp so dirty, I am in the crow’s nest En route to my impending test. Ever since I was young, I have been given to the far-flung: Quiet panic of a possible foe, Wishes to never disturb…
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Climate trauma in Monique Roffey’s Archipelago
Lucille Miao New Jersey, United States Miao, Lucille, “A Leap Forward,” Color Pencil and Acrylic on Paper, 2015 In recent years, the idea of ecological catastrophe has captured the artistic imagination and infiltrated popular culture through novels such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife and television series like teen drama The 100 (2014–). These…
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Longitudinal lunacy: Science and madness in the eighteenth century
Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia Daniel Vuillermin Beijing, China Interior of Bethlem Royal Hospital, from A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth. The poor soul in the background is trying to solve the longitude problem. “A couple of young Non conformist preachers from Worksop in the North of Derbyshire came thither to have my approbation…
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A picture of ill-health: The illness of Elizabeth Siddal
Emily BoyleDublin, Ireland It is difficult to think of Ophelia, one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, without bringing to mind the famous depiction of her by John Everett Millais. In Hamlet, the sensitive and fragile Ophelia is driven mad by grief after her lover Hamlet rejects her and kills her father Polonius. After very poetically…
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That hospital smell
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States “Caricature of a Man with a Large Nose” by Claude Monet. 1855/56. Credit: The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison Collection. Public Domain. What smells good to you? Do you know why? To many people smell seems of little significance, yet it is a powerful…
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Healing in post-genocide Rwanda
Vigneshwar Subramanian Nivetha Subramanian Cleveland, Ohio, United States The Apotheosis of War, Vasily Vereshchagin (1871) In April 1994, one of the largest genocides since the Holocaust erupted in Rwanda as the Hutu ethnic majority conducted a targeted slaughter of the Tutsi people.1 In a span of just over 100 days, over 800,000 people were killed.2…
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A proliferation of monsters: art of the weird as expressions of anxiety in Britain and Japan
Steve WheelerGreenwich, London, England The human fascination with fear of the unknown has been documented in art and literature across civilization for centuries. In every culture, this has manifested itself in the form of creatures as bizarre as they are terrifying. Since the evolution of language, humans have invented and told stories about monsters to…