Faces of Depression in Literature

Josefa Ros Velasco is Associate and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University and Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Ros Velasco holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy with International Mention at the Excellent Program of Doctorate in Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, Spain), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Education. Her current research is multidisciplinay, focusing on the evolution of the understanding of boredom as a mental pathology. She is the author of The Culture of Boredom (2020) and Boredom Is in Your Mind (2019).

• List of Contributors – Josefa Ros Velasco: Preface: From Boredom to Depression (From Philosophy to Psychology) – List of Abbreviations – PART I. Spirituality and Depression from the Middle Ages to Modernity – Derek McAllister: Acedia and Its Relation to Depression – Nancy Ciccone: Depression in Ricardian Dream Visions – Miriam Muccione: Giambattista Vico and the Melancholy of History – Pawel Zagozdzon: Depression in the Literature of the Health Reform and Mental Hygiene Movement: An Example of Ellen G. White Writings – PART II. Secularization of Depression in Modern and Contemporary Literature – Søren Harnow Klausen: Nihilism, Depression, and Wholeheartedness. Metacognitive Strategies in 19th-Century Literature – Shannon Hayes: Can Melancholy Be Heroic? Walter Benjamin and the Vicissitudes of Melancholy – Gail Shanley Corso: Anhedonia, Dysthymia, and Tristasia: Depressed Characters in Alice McDermott’s Novels – Nora Augustine: Broken Promise: Depression as Ex-Gifted Girl Identity in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation – Hannah Ming Yit Ho: Unclean Subject(s) of Depression within the Singaporean State – PART III. Narrations and Metaphors on Depression from and for the Clinical Practice – Josie Billington: Inner Voices: Literary Realism and Psychoanalysis – Lucia Gagliese: Rewriting Mecca: Teaching about Late-Life Depression Using John Metcalf’s "The Years in Exile" – Angelika Potempa: This Aisle Has More Than Two Sides: Insights into Depression, Provided by Medical Doctors – Ioana Unk: Metaphors of Depression in American Short Fiction – Index.