Hybridity,Temporality& Memory in Psychosis Poetry from Robert Lowell's Life Studies to HLR's History of Present Complaint & Bhanu Kapil's Schizophrene

This project seeks to compare three writers - two contemporary, one from the 1950s - who are thematically concerned with psychosis, in order to understand why hybridity, non-linear temporality, and the representation of memories have become key areas of interest in work of this nature.

The writing analysed here, which spans from Life Studies (Robert Lowell, 1959) to Schizophrene (Bhanu Kapil, 2011) and History of Present Complaint (HLR, 2021) can be considered as belonging to hybridised versions of the genres of autobiographical writing, postcolonial writing, and survivor's poetry respectively.

While there is significant academic interest in Life Studies and a recent uptake in research regarding Schizophrene, History of Present Complaint has not yet received critical attention, and no previous research exists linking these three writers together.

My aim is to explore the technical considerations faced when writing about psychosis, acknowledging the debt owed to Robert Lowell's autobiographical mode while analysing the new ways in which contemporary writers are pushing generic boundaries and destabilising time to write about, or through, psychosis.