As the course title suggests (in Emily Dickinson's words), we shall consider how madness can sometimes illuminate truths which prosaic sanity may be slower to apprehend. (King Lear has, of course, profound insights in his insanity.) We will read together "Operators and Things" by Barbara O'Brien (available on-line second-hand), an astonishing personal account of a florid schizophrenic breakdown, and the writer's subsequent recovery into wisdom. I will provide a running analysis, and facilitate discussion. In a state of hallucinatory psychosis, while travelling on Greyhound buses through 1950s America, the author experienced the people she encountered as either "Operators", fantastically committed to manipulating others, or "Things" (such as herself), ceaselessly controlled in intricate power relationships. You will also need the wonderful collection of essays, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" by Gregory Bateson, which provides an interpretation of madness in terms of dysfunctional personal interactions.