She is Hysterical. Hysteria, Politics, and Performance Strategies
In Europe, especially in Vienna and Paris, around 1900, the hysterical girl was a well-studied object in arts and sciences; she re-appeared, a hundred years later, in countless manifestations in US mainstream horror films.In addition, key words describing women in protest as “hysterical”, “nasty”, “possessed”, or “monstrous” dominate contemporary public discourse. The female hysteric in these current narratives references strikingly established representations of the hysteric as (public) performer that extend well beyond the European studies of the nineteenth century. For example, although the medical term hysteria was struck from the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1994, it simultaneously reappeared as Histrionic Personality Disorder (Latin: histrio, actor/actress).This rebranding further underlines the point of this investigation: the female hysteric is diagnosed as performer. Given this reintroduction, and the re-appearance of the hysteric in current discourses, one may assume that the self-reflective media figure of the female hysteric will continue to gain ground in its cultural impact. The aim of this project is to show the ways in which… read more