Hysteria! presents tales of howling nuns, fainting schoolgirls, witches, wombs, online panics and threats - both imagined and real. Crossing decades and continents, and from personal panics to societal scares, Alice Lowe explores hysterical behaviour. Come join the delirium....
Hysteria is a word that regularly gets misused. It gets attached to everything from overly emotional behaviour to moral panics, via stock market crashes, stampedes, viral videos and more. It's often used - pejoratively - about women, and it shares its roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. The story of hysteria touches on issues of stigma, gender, morality and power. But how do we separate mass psychogenic illness from mere emotional excess?
Filmmaker, actress and writer Alice Lowe has long been fascinated by the grey area between behavioural control and abandon. In this six-part series, she explores what we really mean when we talk about frenzies, fevers, manias and panics - both individually and throughout society.
Produced by Wisebuddah for Audible Originals.
This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all 6 episodes to your Library now.
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(Audible Original, 25 July 2019, 3 hours, audiobook, Audible Original Podcast from @audibleuk, free with membership)
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I really enjoyed this podcast. I really wasn't sure what to expect and found myself fascinated more and more with each episode. Too often, the word 'hysteria' or words that mean the same thing are used to describe something that's the opposite of hysteria. Especially women using their voices. The podcasts explore a wide range of topics and ideas from events that can only be described as some form of hysteria, events thought of as hysteria which have a more boring original and everything in between. These podcasts are well thought researched and entertaining.
