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Contemporary Hysteria:
The Drama of Righteous Gullibility

Instructor: Gladden Schrock
Bennington College

TABLE OF CONTENTS


COURSE OVERVIEW

It is increasingly conceded that the greatest period of hysteria and witch-hunting in this country's history is happening now.

We will explore the multiple pathologies converging to make up the current hysterical cultural landscape:

We will examine some of the tens of thousands of cases of current false allegations & imprisonment, including the most salient of the Day-care Scandals. We search for historical perspective, and will follow the 'memory wars' as well as the great body of work generated in the area of Human Suggestibility, searching for clues that might lead one to a respondible comprehension of the whole.

The scope of the course by definition requires much reading in many areas, and an aggressive spirit of inquiry is expected. Each student will select a major-focus topic, upon which a paper will be written before term's end, with a prospectus outlining the projected writing due at mid-term.


SYLLABUS & WEEKLY SCHEDULE

WEEK ONE:
 
WEEK TWO:
 
WEEK THREE:
 
 
  • General introduction to subject, and method of approach.
 
  • False Memory Syndrome phenomena
 
  • Satanic Ritual Abuse
  • Multiple Personality Disorder fad
  • Alien Abduction Craze
  • Facilitated Communication
BOOKS:
  • RETURN OF THE FURIES, Underwager
  • MEMORY WARS, F. Crews
  • VICTIMS OF MEMORY, Pendergrast
  • DIAGNOSIS FOR DISASTER (Wassil-Grimm)
  • REMEMBERING SATAN, L. Wright
  • SATAN'S SILENCE, Nathan/Snedeker
  • SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA, R. Gardner
  • HARMONY OF ILLUSIONS, A. Young
  • MULTIPLE IDENTITY & FALSE MEMORIES, Nicholas Spanos
  • HYSTORIES, E. Showalter
  • MANUFACTURING VICTIMS, T. Dineen
  • SATANIC PANIC, J. Victor

    also:

  • CONFABULATIONS; & TRUE STORIES OF FALSE MEMORIES, Goldstein/Farmer
VIDEO:
  • DIVIDED MEMORIES (Frontline)
WEEK FOUR:
 
HYSTERIA & SUGGESTIBILITY
  • The Index of 'Righteous Gullibility"
  • MONDALE ACT (CAPTA), & unwitting tenets of generative hysteria
  • Current beliefs in Repressed Memories
  • 'Recovery Movement' & 12-step collusion
  • The APA, & professional culpability
BOOKS:
  • MYTH OF REPRESSED MEMORIES, (E. Loftus)
  • SUGGESTIONS OF ABUSE, (M. Yapko)
  • BATTLE FOR THE MIND, Wm. Sargant
  • MAKING MONSTERS, Ofshe/Watters
  • PRESUMED GUILTY, M. Yant
  • CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 4TH KIND, Bryon
  • COURAGE TO HEAL, Bass/Davis
NOTE: Four 'layman-writer' books sparked a good deal of current hysteria - MICHELLE REMEMBERS: SIBYL: CHAMELEON: and COURAGE TO HEAL. Also: Works of Rene Frederickson, Lenore Terr, Judith Herman, et al.
WEEK FIVE:
CULTURAL/HYSTERICAL PERSPECTIVE
BOOKS:
 
  • From the Thirties to Now
  • The Sixties, & advent of The Self
  • New Age; Feminist 'new' epistemology )& Scientific Methodology as 'Patriarchal Oppression')
  • Political Correctness, & loss of due process
  • Academic Contaminations
  • The 'Narcissim/dependency/suggestibility' decelension
  • Self-narration as source of 'Truth'
  • Relativism gone absolute
  • P.T. Barnum & Charcot: Public 'freaks' spectacles
  • TELLING THE TRUTH, L. Cheney
  • DEMON HAUNTED WORLD, C. Sagan
  • CONSOLATIONS OF THEOSOPHY, F. Crews (article)
  • AMERICAN GOTHIC, M. Edmundson (article)
  • CULTURE OF NARCISSISM, C. Lasch
  • SURVIVOR PSYCHOLOGY, S. Smith
  • DICTATORSHIP OF VIRTUE, R. Bernstein
  • ...THE MADNESS OF CROWDS, C. Mackay
  • NATION OF VICTIMS, C. Sykes
  • DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL, J. B. Elshtain
WEEK SIX
PERSPECTIVE ON
PSYCHOTHERAPY
BOOKS:
 
  • Art, Science, or Quackery
  • Ghouls, fairy tales & fables (their appropriate place in life?)
  • American Psychological Association: A Sober Look & the collapse of codes of ethics
  • Ubiquitous PTSD: Can 200 thousand therapists be mistaken?
  • HOUSE OF CARDS, R. Dawes
  • BEWARE THE TALKING CURE, T. Campbell
  • BEDLAM, J. Sharkey
  • A MOST DANGEROUS METHOD, J. Kerr
  • I'M DYSFUNCTIONAL / YOU'RE DYSFUNCTIONAL, W. Kaminer
  • MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS, T. Szasz
  • MIND GAMES, R. Baker
  • SEARCH FOR MEMORY, D. Schacter
WEEK SEVEN
CHILD SAVERS: Tradition & Rebirth
BOOKS
 
  • Child Protective Services & the Department of Human Services
  • Suggestibility / Interrogation, & righteous prosecution
  • Adult projections upon children
  • WOUNDED INNOCENTS, R. Wexler
  • JEOPARDY IN THE COURTROOM, Ceci/Bruck
  • OUT OF CONTROL, B. Scott
  • REAL WORLD OF CHILD INTERROGATIONS, Underwager
  • POLITICS OF CHILD ABUSE/AMERICA (Costin et al)
  • WITCH-CHILDREN, H. Sebald
  • LONG RANGE EFFECTS OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL EXPERIENCES, A. Kilpatrick
  • SEXUALITY: A developmental approach to Problems, Gordon and Schrieder
  • THE CHILD ABUSE INDUSTRY, M. Pride
VIDEO:
  • INNOCENCE LOST (Frontline)
    (The LITTLE RASCALS scandal)
WEEK EIGHT
THE SEX ABUSE INDUSTRY
BOOKS:
 
  • Hysteria as Big Business
  • Tracking the money flow
  • "Abuse" as mantra for cottage industry
  • Media and publication bonanza
  • Recovery 'experts', & Fed Funds: gasoline on the hysterical fire
  • FIRST DO NO HARM: THE SEXUAL ABUSE INDUSTRY, Felicity Goodyear-Smith
  • ISSUES IN SEX ABUSE ALLEGATIONS Quarterly
  • (Index Referencing, all above)
WEEK NINE
 
WEEK TEN
 
WEEK ELEVEN
 
GENDER WARS
  • Current Romance of Victimhood
  • Misandry & Androphobia: Passive control
  • Equity and/or Gender Feminist Battle
  • Feminist studies, & University presses
  • Feminist 'epistemology' & impact on due process, accountability, scientific methodology, & rules of evidence
  • Self-serving Gender Myths which feed hysteria
 
  • Domestic Violence / Domestic Abuse: Politics and 'advocacy research'
  • Violence Against Women Act
  • Demonizing, control, victimology, and false allegations
  • Federal Funding of Hysteria
 
  • Beyond cyncism & gendered mythologies: Fairness, Equity, and: Equality of Rights, Responsibilities, and Accountability
  • New Voices Emerging
BOOKS:
  • WHO STOLE FEMINISM?, C. Hoff-Sommers
  • MYTH OF MALE POWER, W. Farrell
  • PROFESSING FEMINISM, D. Patai
  • GENDER WARS (galley), C. Young
  • EVIDENCE & INQUIRY, S. Haack
  • MASCULINE MYSTIQUE, A. Kimbrell
  • PRINCESS AT THE WINDOW, D. Laframboise
  • FROM DATE TO PUBLIC POLICY, WFN/Simon
  • LIP SERVICE, K. Fillion
  • THE MORNING AFTER, K. Roiphe
  • HETERPHOBIA, D. Patai (article)
  • FEMINISM UNDER FIRE, E. Klein
  • MISMEASURE OF WOMAN, C. Tavris

ALSO: WOMAN's WAYS OF KNOWING; & Gilligan's IN A DIFFERENT VOICE

WEEK TWELVE
 
WEEK THIRTEEN
 
WEEK FOURTEEN
 
CONCERNED VOICES EVOLVING AT LARGE
  • The whole cultural picture
LIVING SENSIBLY WITHIN THIS WORLD
  • Objective/subjective balance
  • Due Process: Scientific evidence/inquiry
  • Are these the Death-throes of Romantic Psychotherapy?
  • Good Faith, Responsible Reflection, and self-responsibility
  • Determining what is to be done: politically, socially, personally
A HEALTHY & JUST PERSPECTIVE
  • The dangers of an 'easy' life, without rites of passage
  • Standards of opulent ease, materialistic consummerism, & the fallacy of ever-increasing standard of material living
  • The 'Simple Life' tradition within US History; & Self-responsible living...as antidote against hysteria
BOOKS:

Revisited: Cheney, Sagan, Lasch, R. Hughes' CULTURE OF COMPLAINT, & Coetzee's GIVING OFFENSE

BOOKS:
  • THE SIMPLE LIFE, D. Shi
  • FLIGHT FROM THE CITY, R. Borsodi
  • THE LONELY CROWD, D. Reisman
  • STAYING PUT, S. Sanders
  • THE VILLAGERS, R. Critchfield
  • AND: Emerson and Dewey re: Nature, 'education' and self-responsibility
 

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