Ovaska, Shattering Minds - Experiences of Mental Illness in Modernist Finnish Literature

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. The study brings forth narrative strategies through which literary representations of shattering seek to affect their readers: What kinds of interpretive paths are invited in the texts? How are readers guided to go through embodied experiences of distress? How do the texts invite critical reflection on cultural and social perceptions of mental illnesses?