A Cultural History of Vertigo - (Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities) by Anindya Raychaudhuri (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The first interdisciplinary history of vertigo, this book covers medical accounts from antiquity to the present, testimonies of lived experience, and literary and cultural representations of vertigo.

Balanced. Stable. Grounded. Levelheaded. Even-keeled. There is a long list of words that demonstrate how we attach extraordinary value to a metaphorical sense of balance. From Alfred Hitchcock's cinema, to Salvador Dalí's art, to the writings of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bishop - authors and artists have repeatedly used their work to invoke vertigo, or the loss of balance, as a metaphor for trauma, disorientation, even existential crisis. But what about those of us who have to live with a vertigo that is all-too real? Based on more than thirty in-depth interviews with people who live with balance disorders, this book explores the connections between vertigo-as-metaphor and vertigo-as-lived experience.

Review Quotes

"This book offers a fresh and compelling take on the cultural history of vertigo. Engagingly written, it is an effortless, informative read." --Haejoo Kim, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Seoul National University.

"There is so little work on vertigo that attends seriously to its cultural impact. This book will resonate not just with scholars but many folks living with this condition who will feel seen by the intimate and rigorous ways it explores our vertiginous cultural imaginary." --Travis Chi Wing Lau, Assistant Professor of English, Kenyon College, USA.

About the Author