This interdisciplinary study examines the still vivid phenomenon of the most controversial psychiatric diagnosis in the United States: multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. This syndrome comprehends the occurrence of two or more distinct identities that take control of a person’s behavior paired with an inexplicable memory loss. Synthesizing the fields of psychiatry and the dynamics of the disorder with its influential representation in American fiction, the study researches how psychiatry and fiction mutually shaped a mysterious syndrome and how this reciprocal process created a genre fiction of its own that persists until today in a very distinct self-referential mode.
About the author
Heike Schwarz (Dr. phil.) teaches American studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany. Her research fields include psychiatry and literature, representation of mental illness in literature, (pop)cultural studies, ecopsychology and ecocriticism.
Language English ● Format PDF ● Pages 456 ● ISBN 9783839424889 ● File size 9.5 MB ● Publisher transcript Verlag ● City Bielefeld ● Country DE ● Published 2014 ● Edition 1 ● Downloadable 24 months ● Currency EUR ● ID 3050124 ● Copy protection Social DRM