Shattering Minds: Experiences of Mental Illness in Modernist Finnish Literature

Shattering Minds: Experiences of Mental Illness in Modernist Finnish Literature. SKS: Helsinki 2023

ISBN: EPUB 978-951-858-638-1
Paperback 978-951-858-637-4
PDF 978-951-858-639-8

Shattering Minds is the first broad study on representations of mental illness in modernist Finnish literature. Through four case studies, it shows how in modernist texts mental suffering is not understood as something that is “inside” a person’s mind. Rather, experiences of illness are entangled with social and material environments, interactions with other people, and cultural norms and narratives that shape, for example, subjectivity, gender, and sexuality.

Drawing on narrative theory, theories of embodied cognition, phenomenology of illness, and feminist theory, the analyses show how literary works can invite readers to respond emotionally and to reflect on our views of the human mind and its interaction with the world. The book sheds light on the fictional portrayals and techniques of representation and on the ethics of narrating and reading about painful experiences. It also illuminates the ways the mind, body, consciousness, and mental distress are discussed in Finnish modernist literature and situates the texts in the international modernist tradition.

Keywords: modernism, narrative studies, cognitive narratology, rhetorical narratology, mental illness, feminist theory, phenomenology, embodied cognition, critical medical humanities, Maria Vaara, Helvi Hämäläinen, Jorma Korpela, Timo K. Mukka