Mila Daskalova
Published: 21 January 2019
Printing and Periodical Culture in the Nineteenth-Century Asylum.
University of Strathclyde
Printing and Periodical Culture in the Nineteenth-Century Asylum.
Throughout the nineteenth century several mental asylums in Scotland and the United States published periodicals, which were written and sometimes entirely produced by patients. The practice was particularly popular in Scotland, where eight such publications were launched in the course of the century, in comparison to four American titles.
This project represents the first in-depth study of the phenomenon, its origins and spread. Moreover, it will be the first discussion of the act of printing a periodical as a therapeutic activity. Adopting a book-historical approach, it will investigate the origins and dissemination of the asylum periodical as a genre, while offering insight into the history of the periodical press, its influential social role and the plurality of its manifestations. It will look into the ways in which such publications were produced, circulated, advertised and received and trace their interactions with broader currents in Scottish, British and transatlantic periodical culture and medicine. Finally, it will argue that asylum periodicals are an invaluable resource in the longstanding debate regarding the conflicting representation of the lunatic asylum as a space of both incarceration and healing and promote a better understanding of the development of mental healthcare and the origins of occupational therapy.
First published: 21 January 2019