{"id":15952,"date":"2023-04-04T12:30:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T16:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=15952"},"modified":"2023-04-09T10:43:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T14:43:11","slug":"episode-533-stevan-m-weine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-533-stevan-m-weine","title":{"rendered":"Episode 533 – Stevan M. Weine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 533:
\nStevan M. Weine<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_533_-_Stevan_M_Weine.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“This book goes back to my interest in poetry and my interest in understanding suffering and trauma. I’ve been on my own journey to understand the place where those things intersect, and when I found Allen Ginsberg’s poetry in junior high school, it really spoke to me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With BEST MINDS: How Allen Ginsberg Made Revolutionary Poetry From Madness<\/a> (Fordham University Press), Dr. Stevan M. Weine<\/a> has written an amazing, illuminating and important new book. We get into the nexus of poetry, suffering and trauma that enveloped Ginsberg’s life, what it took for him to write Howl<\/a>, and his mother Naomi’s schizophrenia and what it meant for him to wrestle with it in Kaddish<\/a>. We talk about the history of psychiatry, the legacy of some truly terrible practices (like prefrontal lobotomization), and what lies ahead for the field, while also exploring Stevan’s mid-’80s interviews with Ginsberg and the discoveries he made in the family’s psychiatric records, the power of self-mythology and how it can elide the facts (like how old Allen was when had to sign the consent form for his mother’s lobotomy), and how Ginsberg balanced on the fine line between madness and great art. Plus, we discuss Ginsberg’s activism and advocacy (including a controversial endorsement), the impact of his best-known poems on the public’s understanding of mental illness, what it meant to Stevan to discover Ginsberg’s poetry in junior high, whether he’s got some poems of his own, and a lot more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read BEST MINDS<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“Allen doesn’t just tell the story of an individual, but of an era, of a society gone mad.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n