Molecules of Madness

Janus-Faced Madness in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power

This paper is an attempt to discuss the concept of madness and its differentcauses and functions in Bessie Head’s semiautobiographical novel A Question ofPower. It aims to explore the multifaceted insanity of Elizabeth the exiled coloredprotagonist in terms of different theories. We will see how once a devastatingtrauma turns out to be a habilitating schizophrenia. Head challenges the readers’n...

Expanding Examples of Madness According to the Concept and Criterion of Madness Perspective of Jurisprudence, Law and Psychology

Background and aim: Madness is a subject that has long been the subject of legal attention. Today, Industrial societies are confronted with a phenomenon called mental disorders and those with such disease which unfortunately is increasing day by day. Obviously, laws over time for scientific advances need to be reformed. This article explores the legal status and the way in which mental patients...

The Meaning of Temperature and Entropy in Classical Statistical Mechanics

This paper began life as a serious attempt to understand the classical foundations of thermodynamics, but ended up doing crazy things like defining the temperature and entropy of single molecules. Nevertheless, there is method behind the madness, because in terms of these generalized definitions I am able to prove that the generalized notion of temperature reduces to the standard notion under c...

Introducing Interrelations Of Madness & Virtuality

This paper approximates interrelations between representations of madness, and virtuality in Immersive Virtual Environments semiotically. Thereby, social and sensual performances indicating coded acts of practice are mapped, and investigated from several perspectives. The authors give an introduction to these ‘altered states’, and suggest that it is possible to learn from codes and mappings of ...

Madness in a ‘secret region’: extended notes on Denise Jodelet’s Madness and Social Representations

[Voices of madness in song: outlooks on madness and the insane in Brazilian songs].

This article is the result of research associated with the representation of madness and the insane in contemporary Brazilian songs. Michel Foucault's considerations about the history of madness and those of Mary Jane Spink about discursive practices and the production of meaning formed the theoretical base for the study. The methodology consisted in mapping the circulation of words and meaning...