In this classic of French cultural studies, Georges Didi-Huberman traces the intimate and reciprocal relationship between the disciplines of psychiatry and photography in the late nineteenth century. Focusing on the immense photographic output of the Salpetriere hospital, the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women, Didi-Huberman shows the crucial role played by photography in the invention of the category of hysteria. Under the direction of the medical teacher and clinician Jean-Martin Charcot, the inmates of Salpetriere identified as hysterics were methodically photographed, providing skeptical colleagues with visual proof of hysteria's specific form. These images, many of which appear in this book, provided the materials for the multivolume album Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere.As Didi-Huberman shows, these photographs were far from simply objective documentation. The subjects were required to portray their hysterical "type"--they performed their own hysteria. Bribed by the special status they enjoyed in the purgatory of experimentation and threatened with transfer back to the inferno of the incurables, the women patiently posed for the photographs and submitted to presentations of hysterical attacks before the crowds that gathered for Charcot's "Tuesday Lectures."Charcot did not stop at voyeuristic observation. Through techniques such as hypnosis, electroshock therapy, and genital manipulation, he instigated the hysterical symptoms in his patients, eventually giving rise to hatred and resistance on their part. Didi-Huberman follows this path from complicity to antipathy in one of Charcot's favorite "cases," that of Augustine, whose image crops up again and again in the Iconographie. Augustine's virtuosic performance of hysteria ultimately became one of self-sacrifice, seen in pictures of ecstasy, crucifixion, and silent cries.
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"... a significant examination of an often blurred landscape between pain and performance..." Allan Graubard Leonardo Reviews "This poetic account of the relationship between photography and madness will interest any student of art or mental health." Publishers Weekly Forecasts "...a significant examination of an often blurred landscape between pain and performance." Allan Graubard Leonardo Reviews
About the Author
Georges Didi-Huberman teaches at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris. He is a winner of the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art given by the College Art Association.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By S. Brown
Format:Paperback
Though this book by Didi Huberman has been available in French for some years it is only recently available in English. It is a profound exploration of Charcot's famous photograph's of women patients at the Saltpeterie acting out their hysterical symptoms. the faces are frozen and the bodies contorted in the agony of their psychic stress. It is easy to see why the young Freud would have been so influenced. I think it is no accident that freud moved to the 'talking cure' after witnessing the barbarity of the Saltpeterie.
For an ailluminating insight into the world of pre-Freudian psychology I recommend this book. The haunting images, I warn you, take up permanent residence in the reader's mind.
For an ailluminating insight into the world of pre-Freudian psychology I recommend this book. The haunting images, I warn you, take up permanent residence in the reader's mind.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2.4 out of 5 stars
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant cultural and psychological history study.
8 Mar 2007
By Robert L. Smart
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is a must-read and must-have. Beautifully designed and brilliantly written, covering cultural and psychological history and the significance of photography as a new medium and its impact on the emerging modern world. The invention of Hysteria is about new phenomenon being created as performance and recorded in images. An eye-opening book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally available in English!
15 July 2011
By bookworm
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Thank goodness that someone finally translated this book! It came out in France more than two decades ago. It's analysis of photography at Salpetriere is extremely important. Didi-Huberman argues that photography helped to invent hysteria. There are tons of wonderful photographs included. My only criticism is that Didi-Huberman's writing is often too convoluted and unclear. That said, Alisa Hartz does a fabulous job translating.
5 of 9 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
pretentious poppycock
6 Jan 2010
By a reader
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
as a practicing neurologist, i had a hard time deciding whether this was simply a case of an inadequate translation or whether the underlying material was in fact the problem Certainly there are tidbits of interesting history contained in this work, but they are buried under a torrent of self-indulgent interpretation and meaningless verbiosity.
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