A Refuge of Cure or Care

Madeline Kearin Ryan

doi:10.5771/9781793643827

Summary

In A Refuge of Cure or Care: The Sensory Dimensions of Confinement at the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane, Madeline Kearin Ryan analyzes the therapy model of the nineteenth-century asylum. Because the five senses were believed to provide a direct conduit into a person’s mental condition, the curative force of the hospital was thought to reside in its command over sensory experience. Ryan examines how the institution was designed to target each of the five senses as a mode of therapy, and conversely, how that well-intentioned design materialized in the haphazard realm of institutional practice. In doing so, Ryan seeks to reconcile the disjuncture between the benevolent promise of the asylum model and its ultimate failure in a way that captures the complex power dynamics and heterogeneity of actors within the institution.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2021
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-4381-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-4382-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 228
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
1. The Birth of the Asylum No access
2. Defining Insanity No access
3. The Role of the Senses in the Nineteenth-Century Asylum No access
4. The Worcester State Hospital: A Brief History No access
5. The Second Hospital No access
6. Anthropology and Archaeology of the Senses No access
7. Methodology No access
8. Chapter Overview No access
9. Notes No access
1. The Picturesque Asylum No access
2. “The Enduring Asylum” No access
3. Asylum Hierarchies No access
4. The Asylum of the Dead No access
5. “Museums of Madness” No access
6. Ending the Edifice Complex No access
7. “Material Signatures” No access
8. Clothing No access
9. Furnishings No access
10. Patients’ Belongings No access
11. Conclusion No access
12. Notes No access
1. Location No access
2. Views No access
3. Light No access
4. Asylum as Home No access
5. Asylum as Prison No access
6. Hospital Palaces and the Public Image No access
7. Windows to the Soul No access
8. Out of Sight, Out of Mind No access
9. Surveillance No access
10. Conclusion: Optical Tricks and Myopic Visions No access
11. Notes No access
1. “A Quiet Haven” No access
2. Sound as Classificatory Mechanism No access
3. Noise Control and Separation No access
4. Listening as Diagnostic Tool No access
5. Sound as Therapy No access
6. “An Amazing Chorus of Screams” No access
7. “Quieting” as Restraint No access
8. Sound as Domination and Resistance No access
9. Conclusion: Sound and Subjectivity No access
1. Ventilation No access
2. Strong Rooms No access
3. Hygiene No access
4. The Role of Attendants No access
5. Hydrotherapy No access
6. The Smell of the Insane No access
7. Conclusion No access
8. Note No access
1. The Law of Moderation No access
2. Treatment: Consumption and Production No access
3. The Asylum Farm No access
4. Forced Feeding: Domination and Resistance No access
5. Tea Parties No access
6. Crockery and Status No access
7. “A Cheap Imitation of Food” No access
8. Conclusion No access
1. The Paradox of Asylum Therapeutics No access
2. The Failure of Empathy No access
Conclusion: The Afterlife of the Asylum No access Pages 201 - 204
Bibliography No access Pages 205 - 222
Index No access Pages 223 - 226
About the Author No access Pages 227 - 228