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DAvis   \nObsession  \nA History  \nW  \ne live in an age of obsession. Not only are we hopelessly devoted to our work, strangely addicted to our favorite television shows, and desperately impassioned about our  \ncars, we admire obsession in others: we demand that lovers be infatuated with one another in films, we respond to the passion of singleminded musicians, we cheer on driven athletes. To be obsessive is to be American; to be obsessive is to be modern.  \nBut obsession is not only a phenomenon of modern existence: it is a medical category—both a pathology and a goal. Behind this paradox lies a fascinating history, which Lennard J. Davis tells in Obsession. Beginning with the roots of the disease in demonic possession and its secular successors, Davis traces the evolution of obsessive behavior from a social and religious fact of life into a medical and psychiatric problem. From obsessive aspects of professional specialization to obsessive sex and nymphomania, no variety of obsession eludes Davis’s graceful analysis. Obsession also considers the clinical definition of the condition: Davis investigates the huge increase (estimates suggest up to 600-fold) in diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder over the past thirty years. Surveying the many ways in which doctors today treat OCD, he points out the limitations of and contradictions within the biological definitions of the disease.  \nImpassioned, witty, and learned, Obsession is for anyone—from compulsive hand washers to professional psychologists—who has been fascinated by, struggled with, or cultivated obsession.  \nLennard J. Davis is professor in the departments of English, Disability and Human Development, and Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the editor of The Disability Studies Reader and the author of My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness and Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body, among other books.  \n“Obsession, in all its tedium, its senseless repetition, its mechanistic perfectionism, has leapt to prominence in recent years ina glamorous range of minutely differentiated pathologies, while post-industrialist working life makes the perfect execution of senseless repetitive tasks the hallmark of normal socialization. Can a clinical psychology blind to history hope to engage with what is genuinely damaging? A profoundly moving and critically acute work of cultural history, Lennard Davis’s Obsession explores the implications of this paradox, examining the effects of classificationist psychology on those it attempts to identify and cure.”  \n—Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai  \nNOvEMbER 272 p. , 17 halftones 6 x 9 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-13782-7  \nCloth $27.50/£14 .50  \nHISTORY MEDICINE  \n“Ha Jin is uniquely placed to address the responsibilities and challenges of the displaced writer. Offering both historical context and a strong personal vision of the migrant writer in America today, these essays are thought-provoking, often inspiring, and, above all, unfailingly interesting.”  \n—Claire Messud,  \nauthor of The Emperor’s Children  \nThe Rice University Campbell Lectures  \nNOvEMbER 96 p. 51/2 x 81/2 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-39988-1 Cloth $14.00/£7.50  \nLITERATURE  \nHA Jin   \nThe Writer as Migrant  \nAs a teenager during China’s Cultural Revolution, Ha Jin  \nserved as an uneducated soldier in the People’s Liberation  \nArmy. Thirty years later, a resident of the United States, he won the National Book Award for his novel Waiting, completing a trajectory that has established him as one of the most admired exemplars of world literature.  \nHa Jin’s journey raises rich and fascinating questions about language, migration, and the place of literature in a rapidly globalizing world—questions that take center stage in The Writer as Migrant, his first work of nonfiction. Consisting of three interconnected essays, this book sets Ha Jin’s own work and life alongside those of other literary exiles, creating a conve","cbCaifBmbUjvSdAC","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifBmbUjvSdAC","pdf",5243735,65,"English","# Obsession in modern life\n## Obsession as a medical category\n# Historical evolution of obsessive behavior\n# OCD diagnosis growth and clinical definition\n## Treatment approaches and biological contradictions\n# Intended audience and author background","[{\"question\":\"How does the book connect obsession to both modern life and historical origins?\",\"answer\":\"It argues obsession reflects contemporary culture while also being treated as a medical category. It links modern behavior to earlier forms such as demonic possession and religious/social successors.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the book say about changes in OCD diagnosis over time?\",\"answer\":\"It discusses a major increase in OCD diagnosis over the past thirty years, referencing estimates up to 600-fold. It uses this shift to explore what drives clinical classification.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the book evaluate biological definitions and current treatments for OCD?\",\"answer\":\"It surveys how doctors treat OCD and points out limitations and contradictions within biological definitions of the condition.\"}]","Obsession - A History - Obsession-focused cultural and medical history | PDF",1792677049,164]