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Madness Manifest: Creativity, Art and the Margins of Mental Health
Pond Inlet, Brock University, January 14, 2008 (rev. 19.12.07)

8:30-8:45 Coffee

8:45-9:00 Opening Remarks

9:00-10:15

Concurrent Sessions:

Constructions of the Mad Woman: From Dionysian Madness to ‘Erotic Distractions’
(Main Floor)
Chair: Sue Spearey

Clarissa Hurley (University of Toronto)
“Fake Madwomen: The pazzia Scene in Scala’s Scenarios”

Carol Merriam (Brock University)
“Disheveled and Dangerous: Mad Women and Social Convention in Classical Poetry”

Alysse Rich (University of Toronto)
“The Height of Madness”

‘Visionary Irrationalism’ and Ecstatic Transgressions (Mezzanine)
Chair: Hans Skott-Myhre

Gregory Betts (Brock University)
“Just Playing Mad: Canadian Surrealist Drama”

Linda Steer (Brock University)
"From Pathology to Ecstasy: Picturing Hysteria in La Révolution surréaliste"

Brittany Gnau (Brock University)
“Playing with Limits: Madness, Drama, and the Pleasure of Transgression”

10:15-10:30 Coffee Break

10:30-11:15 - Plenary Session (Mezzanine): Workshop with Athena Madan
“Gemædde: A Review of Symbolic and Corporal Expression Associated with Psychosis”
Chair: Janet Zanutto

11:20-12 – Keynote Presentation (Main Floor): Richard Rose (Artistic Director, Tarragon Theatre) talks with Joanna Falck (Literary Manager, Shaw Festival) about staging “madness”

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1-1:40 Keynote Presentation (Main Floor): Kirsty Johnston (University of British Columbia)
“Learning from Experience: New Strategies for Representing Mental Illness on Canadian Stages”

1:45-2:30 Performance of the Workman Arts Project’s The Chant,
followed by a post-performance discussion, led by Kirsty Johnston (Main Floor)

2:30-2:45 Coffee Break

2:45-4:00

Concurrent Sessions:

Creativity and Radical Alterities (Main Floor)
Chair: Stan Sadava

Rajiv Kaushik (Brock University)
“On Stendhal Syndrome: An Alternative Phenomenological Analysis?”

Jon Eben Field (Brock University)
“Delusions of Grandeur and Persecution: Meditations on Autobiography, Mental Illness and Philosophy”

Kerri Michalica (Brock University)
"Creativity and Schizophrenia Unveiled: The Similarities and the Differences"

Containment and Control: Madness as Metaphor from Text to Screen (Mezzanine)
Chair: Mathew Martin

Catherine Parayre (Brock University)
“‘Madness’ and Desire: Jane Eyre and Wittgenstein’s Nephew”

Ernesto Virgulti (Brock University)
“Madness and Truth in Luigi Pirandello’s Right You Are (If You Think So)”

Elizabeth Marquis (University of Toronto)
“The Multiple Personalities of Filmic Madness: Silence of the Lambs as Progressive/Regressive Text”

4:00-4:15 Coffee Break

4:15-5:00 Plenary Roundtable (Main Floor): Scenes from Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade and Carol Churchill’s The Skriker followed by a discussion with directors Virginia Reh and David Fancy, scenic designers David Vivian and Kelly Wolf, and Stan Sadava of the Department of Psychology, Brock University.
Chair: Natalie Alvarez

5:10-5:50 Plenary Session (Main Floor): Andy Houston (University of Waterloo) with Darren O’Donnell (Artistic Director, Mammalian Diving Reflex)
“From Symptom to ‘Sinthome’: Darren O’ Donnell’s Social Acupuncture as ‘Talking Cure’”

5:50 Closing Remarks