Abby and Patrick welcome Dan Taberski, creator of the brand-new podcast series Hysterical. They explore the genesis of the series and the challenges and rewards of confronting both the history and the present of “the H-word.” Tracking the trajectories of this famously “elusive neurosis,” Hysterical looks to episodes from colonial America to Belle Epoque Paris to modern-day Iran, and tracks the stories of people from high school students in upstate New York to a prosecutor in Ohio to former CIA agents. How does the documentary balance the different senses of “hysteria” and being “hysterical” as concepts in the history of medicine, as labels used to stigmatize and dismiss suffering, and as a clarifying term for understanding contemporary events? What is ultimately diagnosable as “real” in the brain, in our genes, or according to the DSM – and how do we square those supposed answers with our personal narratives, beliefs, and certainties? In what ways do the individual symptoms of “conversion disorders” reflect underlying social conditions? And how do moral panics and fits of “mass hysteria” reveal hierarchies of gender, race, vulnerability, and power? Taberski tells us about what it was like to interview such a wide range of subjects, and how the show worked to put their stories and personal feelings about “the H-word” into dialogue with interpretations by doctors, sociologists, psychoanalysts, and pundits. Plus: secondary gain, the idea of “evenly hovering attention,” the ethics of leaning into messiness, and the psychoanalytically provocative aspects of podcasting.

You can listen to Hysterical anywhere you get your podcasts; more details are here: https://wondery.com/shows/hysterical/

A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:

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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music