Mad with Freedom: The Political Economy of Blackness, Insanity, and Civil Rights in the U.S. South, 1840-1940

In the 1840s and 1850s, racialized theories on insanity in the segregated South emerged, combining institutional history of psychiatric spaces with early psychiatric theories that defined the Black body as a locus for specific pathologies. Élodie Edwards-Grossi's book, Mad with Freedom, explores these theories and reveals the techniques of resistance employed by Black patients to confront medical power.

Format: Hardback
Length: 246 pages
Publication date: 02 November 2022
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press

In the 1840s and 1850s, the use of race in studies of insanity sparked politically charged theories on the differential biology and pathologies of brains in whites and Blacks. Élodie Edwards-Grossi delves into the largely unknown social history of these racialized theories on insanity in the segregated South in her book, Mad with Freedom. By combining an institutional history of psychiatric spaces in the South that housed Black patients with an intellectual history of early psychiatric theories that defined the Black body as a locus for specific pathologies, Edwards-Grossi sheds light on the complex interplay between race, mental health, and medical power. She also uncovers the subtle, localized techniques of resistance later employed by Black patients to challenge medical authority. Through her work, Edwards-Grossi demonstrates how science and theories on insanity remained deeply politicized in the context of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow South.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the use of race in studies of insanity sparked politically charged theories on the differential biology and pathologies of brains in whites and Blacks. Élodie Edwards-Grossi delves into the largely unknown social history of these racialized theories on insanity in the segregated South in her book, Mad with Freedom. By combining an institutional history of psychiatric spaces in the South that housed Black patients with an intellectual history of early psychiatric theories that defined the Black body as a locus for specific pathologies, Edwards-Grossi sheds light on the complex interplay between race, mental health, and medical power. She also uncovers the subtle, localized techniques of resistance later employed by Black patients to challenge medical authority. Through her work, Edwards-Grossi demonstrates how science and theories on insanity remained deeply politicized in the context of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow South.

Weight: 514g
Dimension: 159 x 237 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780807177747