Madness and Civilization
Chapter 1 Stultifera Navis
 Challenge to historiography
 Did such ships exist?
 Significance to argument of
text?
Bosch - The Ship of Fools
Chapter 2: The Great
Confinement
Bicetre
Classical Period Begins
 Meaning of madness, treatment of
mad shifts.
 Madness is related to idleness.
 Thus, madness becomes an
economic and moral issue.
 Thus it requires punishment.
 Punishment is informed by
opportunities for economic
exploitation/advantage, moral
condemnation, and religious ideas (the
mad are cast as the Fallen)
 Introduction of morality via
economic issues has lasting affects on
treatment of mad and the relationship
between mad and society.
Chapter 3: The Insane
Enclosing of people mirrors
enclosure of land
Mad lack what is most human to
classical mind – reason
Thus can be treated as animals
Salpetriere
Chapter 4: Passion and Delirium
Madness, logic, and language.
The mad often demonstrate unique use
of language and logic which has the
potential to:
test boundaries of language and logic.
distort language and logic in unique
ways.
express its own unique logic and
truth.
M. Foucault
Chapter 5: Aspects of Madness
Transition from moral to medical
Humors and common sense
Chapter 6: Doctors and Patients
Shift towards more humane,
scientific approach to treatment.
Nonetheless, new approach is still
rooted in religious notions of
punishment and redemption.
Cure focuses on the bodies of the
mad.
Water cure recalls baptism.
Other cures: deliberately inflected
skin disease, bleedings, baths, and
purges, theatrical representation.
Immersion
Chapter 7: The Great Fear
Foucault returns to
literary analysis
18th Century fear of
contamination
Diderot, DeSade,
Holderlin, Nerval,
Nietzsche
Marquis De Sade
Chapter 8: The New Division
Early 19th century, calls for reforms.
Physicians, theorists propose
 confinement be reduced to those who
are a danger to themselves and society.
 relocation of patients from jails to
hospitals
 However, hospitals to treat the mad do
not yet exist.
Goya – “The Sleep of Reason
Chapter 9: The Birth
of the Asylum
Techniques/practices of
early psychiatric
reformers: Tuke, Pinel
Descriptions contrast with
perceived message of book
Foucault and
“antipsychiatry”
Concluding Chapter and Beyond:
The relationship between art and madness
Goya – “The Madhouse”
The art of the mentally ill:
Outsider Art, Intuitive Art, Art Brut

Often demonstrates an unawareness of conventional
notions of technique and aesthetics.

Exists outside of lineage, contemporary community

Reflects unique perspective, condition of artist
Willem Van Genk 1
Willem Van Genk 2
Wolfli 1
Wolfli 2
Francis Palanc
Baya
Gaston Teuscher
Madge Gill
Scottie Wilson
Carlo 1
Carlo 2
Madness, transgression, and art
- Transgression:
Exploring the boundaries of conventional notions of
morality and truth.
- Examples in literature:
Bataille, Genet, Artaud, etc.
- Resonates with Foucault:
Foucault writes: “madness has become mans possibility for
abolishing both man and the world….it is the last recourse: the end
and beginning of everything…it is the ambiguity of chaos and the
apocalypse” (F 281).
Foucault and Artaud:
- Foucault’s thoughts on madness as ‘the
end and beginning of everything’ resonate
with Artaud’s writing, particularly his essay,
“No More Masterpieces,” in which Artaud
declares:
- Reverence for the past works of art
serves to imprison the art of today and the
art to come.
- The phenomena of masterpieces
alienates art from the public via its
‘superstitious’ reverence for texts.
- If the public finds a given masterpiece
irrelevant and incomprehensible, it is not
the fault of the public, but the fault of the
work itself and system in which such
works are defied.
Both Foucault and Artaud see conventional notions of
psychology as an obstruction to the potential of art and
creativity.
-Artaud holds psychology accountable for “..working
relentlessly to reduce the unknown to the known,” (Artaud
77).
- Artaud declares theater must go beyond psychological
concerns such as woes over social careerism, money and
love.
Both Foucault and Artaud see the dislocating experience
of madness as potentially productive, capable of yielding
unique insights. Artaud seeks an art which mirrors the
experience of madness.
- Artaud proposes a theater which confronts its audience
in visceral and disorientating way, a theater which he
likens to lava in a volcanic explosion.
Madness as inspiration: an example
Rafael Alberti “Concerning the Angels”
- Background:
 Among the “generation of 27”
 Written during a depressive episode brought on by a
failed love affair and the suicide of a friend.
- Alberti’s description of the writing process
- Alberti discusses ways in which his mental state dictated his
writing style and process
Eviction
Evil or good angels,
I don’t know which,
hurled you into my soul.
Lonely,
without furniture or sleeping space,
vacant.
Intrepidly, the wind wounds
the walls,
the finest panes of glass.
Dampness. Chains. Cries.
Wind guests.
I ask you:
when you leave the house,
tell me
which evil, which cruel angels
will want to rent it again?
Tell me.
From “Concerning the Angels,”
by Rafael Alberti.
Concluding Thoughts
How does Foucault’s Madness and Civilization
apply to Library Science?
Speaks to nature of classification in general, specifically:
The potential for cultural perspective
and/or cultural bias to inform the ways in
which knowledge or information is
classified, structured, limited, and
interacted with.