Sometimes the most troubled people make the most important artists.
Dr. Susan Carlson, professor of English at Pittsburg State University, will examine the link between depression and creativity in the writings of Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë and Florence Nightingale during a lecture to be held at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23, in 109 Grubbs Hall.
Carlson is the final speaker this year in the Arts and Sciences Lecture Series sponsored the College of Arts and Sciences.
In her presentation, Carlson points out that variations of mental illness such as manic depressive disorder have been studied in connection with writing, but other factors remain unstudied.
“But what about clinical depression, has no highs and instead induces symptoms that seem to go in the opposite direction of creativity: lethargy, consistent melancholy, and mental slowness?” Carlson writes. “How can a writer, no matter how gifted, be trapped in this illness and still create great art?”
Carlson intends to explore the question by studying Shelley, Brontë and Nightingale, who all battled clinical depression.
Shelley spent most of her life in suicidal depression, but somehow supported herself as a novelist, and Brontë wrote “Villette” while almost paralyzed by depression. Nightingale, now recognized as the founder of nursing, fought mental illness throughout her life and still managed to write the feminist treatise “Cassandra,” along with several nursing textbooks.
Carlson’s presentation will include slides to help the audience understand current knowledge of mental illness, and its treatment in the 19th century when these writers were active.
Carlson has been a professor in the English Department at PSU since 1991. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. at Ohio State University, and spent a year as a Fulbright Lecturer in Eskisehir, Turkey.
Her research on Victorian women writers has been published in several journals, including “Brontë Transactions.” A chapter on Charlotte Brontë’s early work was published as a chapter of the book “Creating Safe Space: Violence and Women’s Writing.”
For more information, persons may contact Bobby Winters at 235-4079.
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Sometimes the most troubled people make the most important artists.
Dr. Susan Carlson, professor of English at Pittsburg State University, will examine the link between depression and creativity in the writings of Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë and Florence Nightingale during a lecture to be held at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23, in 109 Grubbs Hall.
Carlson is the final speaker this year in the Arts and Sciences Lecture Series sponsored the College of Arts and Sciences.
In her presentation, Carlson points out that variations of mental illness such as manic depressive disorder have been studied in connection with writing, but other factors remain unstudied.
“But what about clinical depression, has no highs and instead induces symptoms that seem to go in the opposite direction of creativity: lethargy, consistent melancholy, and mental slowness?” Carlson writes. “How can a writer, no matter how gifted, be trapped in this illness and still create great art?”
Carlson intends to explore the question by studying Shelley, Brontë and Nightingale, who all battled clinical depression.
Shelley spent most of her life in suicidal depression, but somehow supported herself as a novelist, and Brontë wrote “Villette” while almost paralyzed by depression. Nightingale, now recognized as the founder of nursing, fought mental illness throughout her life and still managed to write the feminist treatise “Cassandra,” along with several nursing textbooks.
Carlson’s presentation will include slides to help the audience understand current knowledge of mental illness, and its treatment in the 19th century when these writers were active.
Carlson has been a professor in the English Department at PSU since 1991. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. at Ohio State University, and spent a year as a Fulbright Lecturer in Eskisehir, Turkey.
Her research on Victorian women writers has been published in several journals, including “Brontë Transactions.” A chapter on Charlotte Brontë’s early work was published as a chapter of the book “Creating Safe Space: Violence and Women’s Writing.”
For more information, persons may contact Bobby Winters at 235-4079.
