Author Rachel Röst: Madness in Literature

How do you write about consciousness when it begins to fracture? And why do we keep seeking out narratives where reality shifts, language breaks down, and the human stands at the edge of itself?

In this lecture, Rachel Röst explores how literature has depicted madness through the ages - from early demonizations to modern psychological and existential voices. Drawing on Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Kafka, she unfolds the quiet inner tremors that characterize far more madness than the dramatic images we typically associate with it.

Rachel Röst also draws on her own experiences: she has written about her mother's psychosis and a period when the contours of madness scraped beneath her own skull - material she is currently working with for a new book.

Following the lecture, there will be an opportunity for questions and dialogue.