Descrizione del progetto
Il ruolo delle fiabe nella rivisitazione della devianza
Il genere e la sessualità si sono progressivamente affermati come argomenti di spicco nei dibattiti scientifici e culturali odierni in Europa e nel Nord America. Nel XIX secolo, gli albori della psichiatria determinarono forti divisioni tra i concetti di comportamento «normale-anormale» e «morale-deviante», nonché sulla nozione di malattia mentale. Questi conflitti hanno influito sulla letteratura che, a sua volta, ha messo in discussione le narrazioni patriarcali e le norme rigorose di tale scienza, reinterpretando il significato che la psichiatria aveva attribuito alla pazzia. Numerose fiabe prodotte in Francia, Gran Bretagna e Stati Uniti illustrano questo processo. Partendo da queste premesse, il progetto MadLand, finanziato dall’UE, condurrà rivoluzionari studi di tipo interdisciplinare e transnazionale intesi ad approfondire il reciproco scambio di conoscenze in essere tra psichiatria e letteratura per quanto concerne l’interpretazione e la rivisitazione della devianza. A tal fine, esso condurrà un’analisi testuale comparativa del discorso sulla malattia mentale e le fiabe.
Obiettivo
‘Madness in Fairy Land’ (MadLand) is an interdisciplinary exploration of fairy-tale and medical discourses on deviance and abnormality in 19th-century Britain, France, and the US. The project demonstrates the mutual knowledge-exchange between psychiatry and literature in interpreting, understanding, and (re)imagining deviance. In its comparative textual analysis of treatises on mental illness and fairy-tale narratives, MadLand provides the first transnational and translinguistic investigation: (1) of the ways in which 19th-century literary fairy tales reflected, incorporated, and questioned medical interpretations of moral and psychological deviance and of abnormal behaviour; and (2) of how the fairy-tale imagery and language of monstrosity, in turn, influenced and served as a point of reference for the codification of insanity by psychiatry in its formative period, 1820-1900.
MadLand examines portrayals of diverse characters and themes in fairy-tale narratives that challenged hegemonic views of (hetero)normativity. It investigates literature’s creative reaction to the rigid dividing lines between normality and deviance as established by early psychiatry, then incorporated into the dominant cultural discourse, and still very much debated today. Exploring the emergence of psychological deviance and its representation in 19th-century fairy tales from a comparative viewpoint, MadLand contributes to current discussions on perceived norms and deviations of sexual orientation and gender expression, shedding light on medical and literary debates around ab/normal behaviour, monstrosity, gender, and sexuality in Europe and North America.
As an expert in the relations between literature and medicine and 19th-century discourses of decadence, I am especially qualified to undertake this research, which will give me the opportunity to build on my existing knowledge in comparative literature as well as to acquire new skills and competences in fairy-tale and gender studies.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
30123 Venezia
Italia