Hystories; Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture

New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Pryde Brown (author photograph). x, [2], 244 pages. Notes. Index. Minor DJ edge tear at back. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads For David--Thanks for coming and for having an open mind. Best wishes, Elaine Showalter. This work argues that modern syndromes such as alien abduction, chronic fatigue, satanic ritual abuse, and Gulf War syndrome are all manifestations of mass cultural hysteria, and shows how epidemics of hysteria are spread through self-help books, talk shows, the Internet, films, and literary criticism. For scholars and general readers. Elaine Showalter (born January 21, 1941) is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics, a term describing the study of "women as writers". Showalter has written and edited numerous books and articles focused on a variety of subjects, from feminist literary criticism to fashion, sometimes sparking controversy, especially with her work on illnesses. Showalter has been a television critic for People magazine and a commentator on BBC radio and television. She is a recipient of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism. She is the Avalon Foundation Professor Emerita. She is also the past-president of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Showalter's best known works are The Female Malady, Sexual Anarchy , Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media, and Inventing Herself. In 2007, Showalter was chair of the judges for the prestigious literary award, the Man Booker International Prize. Showalter's controversial take on illnesses such as multiple personality disorder, Gulf War syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome in her book Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (1997) has angered some in the health profession and many who suffer from these illnesses. Showalter admits to receiving hate mail, but has not been deterred from her position that these conditions are contemporary manifestations of hysteria. Derived from a Kirkus review: Applied scholarship in the best interdisciplinary tradition, examining how hysteria, the individual somaticization of anxiety, devolves to the ``hystories,'' or cultural narratives, of the title and how they in turn escalate into psychogenic epidemics. Feminist literary critic and medical historian Showalter identifies six contemporary syndromes as hysterical epidemics, which arise when influential professional gurus impact on vulnerable populations in culturally supportive environments. Psychotherapy is, Showalter claims, part of the solution to the problem that she expands on fluently in the idioms of psychoanalysis, feminism, and literature. When she moves to address chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndromes as psychological in origin, her zeal [impacts] her rhetorical and reportorial judgment; however, on the overlapping hystories of recovered memory, multiple personality disorder, satanic ritual abuse, and alien abduction, the advocates convict themselves—of fascination with conspiracy, of accommodating to guilt and fear by licensing the projecting of blame onto others, and above all of resolute obliviousness to ``the way . . . suggestion worked to produce confabulation.'' She honors the ``spiritual resonance'' lodged even in the narratives she makes sport of: Her quarrel is not with the symptoms of hysteria; she affirms the they are no less real (and no less treatable) than those of organic diseases. It is with the ``social appropriations'' of hysteria (such as the ramifications of incest accusations based on ``recovered'' memory) that she takes issue, and in defense of emotional mystery and narrative truth that she risks the wrath of the epidemics' proponents by challenging them. Muscular, probably inflammatory, and elegantly expressed.