Tinfoil Hats: Stories by Mad People in an Insane World is a collection of stories by neurodivergent people who identify as being Mad, about what it’s like to live Mad in a world that oppresses them for the ways they think, live, and act differently from those who consider themselves Normal.
intensely personal, sometimes funny, sometimes dark, these stories are always illuminating. some describe situations that are vibrantly shameful, horrifyingly scary, and just plain hard. they’re also joyful, spiritual, and enlivening. these are narratives that describe in detail what it looks, feels, sounds, and smells like to be Made Mad. they outline what it’s like for Mad people to interact with those in the psy-complex who stigmatize, psychiatrize, and traumatize those called crazy. it’s unhinged writing, about whirleds unknown and unimagined by most. it’s work that is immensely difficult to write, read, talk, or think about.
Tinfoil Hats was not conceived as – should not be read as – some kind of trauma porn, a way to get juiced on the misery and distress of others. nope. nuttin like dat. instead, it sees Madness as a kind of political and revolutionary knowledge. it troubles the ways in which Mad bodyminds are heard and understood by the psy-industrial complex and the dominating, epistemic violence it inflicts on us all.
the authors come from all over the world, and from all walks of life. Tinfoil Hats is edited by Mad poet, artist, and scholar Phil Smith, whose recent work Writhing Writing: Moving Towards a Mad Poetics (and published by Autonomous Press) won the 2020 American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Award.
this book is for you if you’re a Mad person, or if you know someone who is. this book is for you if you’re a social worker, psychologist, researcher, therapist, doctor, or nurse, and want to know what it’s like to live Mad. this book is for you if you’re curious about what saneism is, and what that form of oppression means in the lives of real people.
Tinfoil Hats is the beginning of a Mad (r)evolution. join us.
Table of Content
tinfoil hats: stories by Mad people in an insane world-an introduction - phil smith
bleeding insanity: one person’s story of Madness, menstruation, and Neurodivergence - Jenn Layton Annable
chartering (un)knowability: mapping Transness and Madness within the interstices of becoming - Jersey Cosantino
coming out twice: how my ‘nuclear meltdown’ helped me embrace my madness and autism - Dr . Benjamin Habib
killing the mood: a bi-vocal commentary on bipolar humor - Leah Heilig and Bailey S . Kirby
a perfect graveyard of buried hopes - Monica K . Shields
Hello Satan - Helen Silverwood
weighting/the machine: whut mad[ness] is mad[e] uv - phil smith
cat-Pigeon and Bird-woman - Jacquie Pruder St .Antoine
Charleston Memorial - Aubry Threlkeld
Mad Out Loud - Devin S . Turk
About the author
Phil Smith is completely post-everything-he is SO after that. formerly a big deal perfesser guy, with teaching gigs in vermont, michigan, and illinois. at eastern michigan university, as a full professer, he was director of the brehm center for special education scholarship and research, and head of the department of special education. phil received the 2002 vermont crime victim service award, the emerging scholar award in disability studies in education in 2009, and the eastern michigan university college of education innovative scholarship award in 2015.his writing-academic and creative-has been published widely, since 1977. phil has had papers published in Disability Studies Quarterly, Taboo, Rural Special Education Quarterly, Qualitative Inquiry, Intellectual Disabilities; Review of Educational Research, and Health and Place. he’s published a whole lotta book chapters, and made many presentations and keynote addresses in local, state, national, and international venues.a poet, playwright, novelist, and visual and performance artist, his creative books include pomes; plaze; hagiography, or the electron; hats; keweenaw bay songs; landscapes; machines; doors and walls and windows; still life; the reach; this place is north; poems come; and cutting wood.his academic work includes two books exploring disability studies, Whatever Happened to Inclusion? The Place of Students with Intellectual Disabilities in Education and Both Sides of the Table: Autoethnographies of Educators Learning and Teaching With/In [Dis]ability; as well as a textbook entitled, Disability and Diversity: An Introduction. his book, writhing writing: moving towards a mad poetics, won the 2020 American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Award.phil also worked as a disability and mad rights activist, and served on the boards of directors of a number of regional, state and local organizations, including the Society for Disability Studies, where he was President.a life-long Yankee, he lived for a coupla decades in michigan, spending as much time as he could beside Lake Superior, where loons, wolves, moose, and bald eagles peeked in the windows of his cabin. now he lives on the side of a mountain at 1800 feet, in an even smaller cabin, fussing and ranting with his tree and animal neighbors.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
45,577 Ebooks in this category
