1st Edition

Culture-Bound Syndromes in Popular Culture

Edited By Cringuta Irina Pelea Copyright 2024
338 Pages 32 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

338 Pages 32 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

338 Pages 32 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This volume explores culture-bound syndromes, defined as a pattern of symptoms (mental, physical, and/or relational) experienced only by members of a specific cultural group and recognized as a disorder by members of those groups, and their coverage in popular culture. Encompassing a wide range of popular culture genres and mediums – from film and TV to literature, graphic novels, and anime –... Read more

List of Figures

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Towards a New Research Paradigm in Popular Culture

Part I: East Asia

Chapter 1: When Repressed Anger Fights Back: Hwabyung in Korean Popular Culture

Seongha Rhee

Chapter 2: Human Encaged: Hikikomori and Taijin Kyofusho in Japanese Popular Culture

Cringuta Irina Pelea

Chapter 3: A Qigong-Induced Mental Disorder: Zou Huo Ru Mo in Chinese Popular Culture

Liu Jinxiu

Part II: India and Southeast Asia

Chapter 4: Cultural Syndromes in India: Understanding Widow Burning in Sati and Jauhar through Indian Literature

Prachi Priyanka

Chapter 5: The Yakshi Syndrome in Indian Popular Culture: Representation of Possessed Female Bodies in Indian Cinema

Raj Sony Jalarajan and Adith K. Suresh

Chapter 6: Seeking the Maternal Uncle: A Study of the Culture-Bound Syndrome Known as Nihu in the Karbis

Sermily Terangpi

Chapter 7: Old but Still Going Strong: Don Khong in Thai Popular Culture

Kultida Khammee

Chapter 8: Rethinking Amok: Indigenous Identity Affirmation in Malay Legends of Southeast Asia

Hannah M. Y. Ho

Part III: America and Native American culture

Chapter 9: The Next Frame Could Be My Redemption: Signature Wounds and Tunnel-Vision Haunt War-Themed Cultural Artifacts

Myra Tatum Salcedo

Chapter 10: Wendigo Psychosis: From Colonial Fabrication to Popular Culture Appropriations and Indigenous Reclamations

Vivienne Tailor

Chapter 11: Cuban Hysteria. Tracing the Invention of a Culture-Bound Syndrome. (17981830)

Roseli Rojo

Chapter 12: Digital Culture-Bound Syndromes: A Sociocultural Perspective on Human-Technology Interaction, Mental Health, and Communication

Cringuta Irina Pelea

Part IV: Africa and the Middle East

Chapter 13: To Kill or to Resurrect: Screening the Agency of Voodoo Priests, Sorcerers and Men of God in Cameroonian and Nigerian Films

Floribert Patrick C. Endong

Chapter 14: Belief in the Existence of the Jinn as a Cultural Syndrome: The Case of Sadeq Hedayat's Fiction

Masoud Farahmandfar and Saman Taheri

Chapter 15: Ghostly Environments: Faru Rab and the Transnational in Atlantics (2019)

Chelsea Wessels

Biography

Cringuta Irina Pelea is Lecturer in Communication Studies at Titu Maiorescu University, Romania. Her major research and teaching interests are popular culture, intercultural communication, Japanese studies, and public relations. She is the editor of the present volume, Culture-Bound Syndromes in Popular Culture, and has forthcoming chapters in the volumes Confronting Conformity: Gender Fluidity in Japanese Arts & Culture and Routledge Companion to Literature and Social Justice. She can be followed on Instagram @prof.irina.pelea.