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All in my Head : Beckett, Schizophrenia and the self
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Barry, Elizabeth C. (2016) All in my Head : Beckett, Schizophrenia and the self. Journal of Medical Humanities, 37 (2). pp. 183-192. doi:10.1007/s10912-016-9384-6 ISSN 1041-3545.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9384-6
Abstract
This article will explore the representation of certain mental and somatic phenomena in Beckett’s trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, exploring how his understanding of schizophrenia and psychosis informs his representation of the relationship between mind and body. It will also examine recent phenomenological and philosophical accounts of schizophrenia (Louis Sass, Josef Parnas, Shaun Gallagher) that see the condition as a disorder of selfhood and concentrate in it on the disruption to ipseity, a fundamental and pre-reflective awareness of self that leads to a loss of ‘grip’ (in the term of Merleau-Ponty) on concepts and percepts. Beckett’s writing might, it is argued, make such disruptions more tangible and intelligible. The article will also consider John Campbell’s argument that immunity of the first person to error—Sydney Shoemaker’s foundational philosophical idea that we cannot misspeak the first person pronoun—is revoked in states of psychosis, and relate such states to the moments in Beckett’s writing where this immunity is challenged, and quasi-psychotic experiences represented.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PR English literature | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989 -- Criticism and interpretation, Schizophrenia in literature , Psychoses -- In literature | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Medical Humanities | ||||||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1041-3545 | ||||||||
Official Date: | June 2016 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 37 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 183-192 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s10912-016-9384-6 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 17 May 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 17 May 2016 |
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