A Cultural History of Vertigo - Unbalanced

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 Dali''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.

Product details

• Authors: Anindya Raychaudhuri, Raychaudhuri Anindya
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 11.12.2025
• EAN: 9781350523517
• ISBN: 978-1-350-52351-7
• No. of pages: 248
• Series: Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Film Theory & Criticism, Film history, theory or criticism, Literary studies: from c 2000