Title: Saint hysteria : neurosis, mysticism, and gender in European culture /
Authors: Mazzoni, Cristina, 1965-
Publisher: Cornell University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Women mystics Europe Psychology.; Christian women saints Europe Psychology.; Psychiatry and religion.; Hysteria.; Ecstasy.; Hysteria history; Religion and Psychology; Mysticism; Women history; Saints
Abstract: Saint Hysteria examines scientific, literary, and religious texts that share a fascination with the otherness of the female body, whether in ecstatic pleasure or in neurotic pain. Cristina Mazzoni focuses on material from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly in Italy and France. Her approach uses the methodologies of cultural studies and feminism but also benefits from the insights of psychoanalytic criticism. She asks how the identification of mysticism with hysteria became prevalent, and explores the continuing dialogue between a historicizing view of hysteria and a view of hysteria as repressed religious mysticism.