Courses :: Module, ARTISTS, MANIACS, AND MISFITS: MENTAL HEALTH AND SOCIAL ORDER IN LATIN AMERICA

	Overview
	How have cinema and TV contributed to reshaping notions of mental health over history? How do cultural images of the mentally ill inform our social structures of medicine, education, and crime? This course will invite students to reflect on the role of culture in the administration of life and the discipline of behaviours and emotions. Through Latin American films and TV shows from the 20th and 21st centuries, we will study how fictional portrayals of mental health have popularized images of the �normal� and the �different� as a means of either reinforcing or challenging social order. Depictions of therapy, hospitals, schools, and prisons will allow us to interpret how the concept of mental health has varied in subsequent historical contexts and in response to pressing social debates. Looking at key events in Latin American history, such as political revolutions in the 1960s and feminist movements in the 2010s, we will examine how cultural narratives of mental health have contributed to either marginalizing or empowering �inconvenient� figures such as the rebel, the creative, the homosexual, and the neurodivergent.

Overview

How have cinema and TV contributed to reshaping notions of mental health over history? How do cultural images of the mentally ill inform our social structures of medicine, education, and crime? This course will invite students to reflect on the role of culture in the administration of life and the discipline of behaviours and emotions. Through Latin American films and TV shows from the 20th and 21st centuries, we will study how fictional portrayals of mental health have popularized images of the �normal� and the �different� as a means of either reinforcing or challenging social order. Depictions of therapy, hospitals, schools, and prisons will allow us to interpret how the concept of mental health has varied in subsequent historical contexts and in response to pressing social debates. Looking at key events in Latin American history, such as political revolutions in the 1960s and feminist movements in the 2010s, we will examine how cultural narratives of mental health have contributed to either marginalizing or empowering �inconvenient� figures such as the rebel, the creative, the homosexual, and the neurodivergent.

	Learning Outcomes
	On successful completion of the module, students should be able to: Describe and interrogate the changing concept of mental health in subsequent historical periods. Identify the links between cultural views of mental health and key socio-political events in Latin American history. Formulate close-reading analyses of depictions of therapy, hospitals, schools, and prisons in cinema and TV. Undertake independent research and engage with theories of mental health to present academic interpretations of Latin American cinema. Develop teamwork and creative skills through group screenwriting projects.

Learning Outcomes

	Autumn Supplementals/Resits
	Are supplemental/resit registrations permitted? Yes

Autumn Supplementals/Resits

	Timetable
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ARTISTS, MANIACS, AND MISFITS: MENTAL HEALTH AND SOCIAL ORDER IN LATIN AMERICA

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