It's Madness

The Politics of Mental Health in Colonial Korea
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-520-28930-7
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 464 g

It’s Madness examines Korea’s years under Japanese colonialism, when mental health first became defined as a medical and social problem. As in most Asian countries, severe social ostracism, shame, and fear of jeopardizing marriage prospects compelled most Korean families to conceal the mentally ill behind closed doors. This book explores the impact of Chinese traditional medicine and its holistic approach to treating mental disorders, the resilience of folk illnesses as explanations for inappropriate and dangerous behaviors, the emergence of clinical psychiatry as a discipline, and the competing models of care under the Japanese colonial authorities and Western missionary doctors. Drawing upon unpublished archival as well as printed sources, this is the first study to examine the ways in which “madness” was understood, classified, and treated in traditional Korea and the role of science in pathologizing and redefining mental illness under Japanese colonial rule.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yoo, Theodore Jun

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Geschichte der Psychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Theodore Jun Yoo is Associate Professor of Korean Language and Literature at Yonsei University. He is the author of The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea: Education, Labor, and Health, 1910–1945.