How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity

Black Outdoors: Innovations in the Poetics of Study

by LaMarr Jurelle Bruce

“Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly.” So begins La Marr Jurelle Bruce's urgent provocation and poignant meditation on madness in black radical art. Bruce theorizes four overlapping meanings of madness: the lived experience of an unruly mind, the psychiatric category of serious mental illness, the emotional state also known as “rage,” and any drastic deviation from psychosocial norms. With care and verve, he explores the mad in the literature of Amiri Baraka, Gayl Jones, and Ntozake Shange; in the jazz repertoires of Buddy Bolden, Sun Ra, and Charles Mingus; in the comedic performances of Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle; in the protest music of Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar, and beyond. These artists activate madness as content, form, aesthetic, strategy, philosophy, and energy in an enduring black radical tradition. Joining this tradition, Bruce mobilizes a set of interpretive practices, affective dispositions, political principles, and existential orientations that he calls “mad methodology.” Ultimately, How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind is both a study and an act of critical, ethical, radical madness.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Psychology, Philosophy, Art, Disability, Race

359 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2021

About the author

La Marr Jurelle Bruce is author of How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity (Duke University Press). The book has earned praised as a “lyrical and profound tour de force” (Patricia J. Williams); “innovative, evocative, and beautifully written” (Nicole R. Fleetwood); and “devastating” (Dawn Lundy Martin).

Bruce is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar, cultural and literary theorist, first-generation college graduate, Afromanticist, and Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His scholarship explores and activates black expressive cultures—spanning literature, film, music, theatre, and the art and aesthetics of quotidian black life.

Winner of the 2014 Joe Weixlmann Essay Prize from African American Review, Bruce has work featured or forthcoming in American Quarterly, The Black Scholar, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, TDR: The Drama Review, Social Text, and The Mad Studies Reader (forthcoming from Routledge Press). His work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, among other organizations. He earned his B.A. in African American Studies and English & Comparative Literature from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale University. Bruce is a native of the Bronx, New York.

Reviews

[Barbara McVeigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exemplary research is interwoven in this university-level analysis of black radical creativity. I especially liked the chapter on Nina Simone as the essay had some analysis of the musicality of “Mississippi Goddam”.

[Terra Holman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is lyrical. The content is phenomenally thought-provoking. I love this work.

[Kora Dzbinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

“in love and madness, words fail.” // necessary, incredible, invaluable to ephemeral research, to Mad Studies, to the world, to me.

[Ceci Zuniga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing. It felt like I was reading poetry and prose and a master’s thesis all in one.

[Meaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

take a long, deep, thoughtful breath in. once your lungs are full and your diaphragm contracted, take one more quick sip of air. that rapturous gasp is this book.

this was the easiest, most obvious 5 stars I’ve ever given. and yet, to scale this book using a western metric used by “Reasonable” (as the author would put it) white academia feels completely counterintuitive to the heart of this book.

this reads as both a socio-historical deep dive into mad-black histories and a poetic cosmology of radical compassion, deep care and revolutionary imaginings.

« To snap is to break, to come undone, to lose control, to go crazy; to click is to come together, to fall into place, to make sense. Much as the sounds of physical snaps and physical clicks are sometimes indistinguishable to the ear, the process signified in this book reveals, sometimes coming undone is precisely how one falls into place. Sometimes a breakdown doubles as a breakthrough. Sometimes a snap is a click. Sometimes. »

« Yet it seems to me that psychosocial madness reveals more about the avowedly sane society branding an object crazy than about the object so branded. When you point at someone or something and shout “Crazy!”, you have revealed more about yourself-about your sensibility, your values, your attentions, your notion of the normal, the limits of your imagination in processing dramatic difference, the terms you use to describe the world, the reach of your pointing finger, the lilt of your accusatory voice— than you have revealed about that supposedly mad entity.”

[Bunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This became my favorite book within the first 10 pages and just kept delivering. The subject matter, writing style, and masterful interweaving of such critical thought and intricate particularities are exactly how my mind craves to conceptualize. Phenomenal, transcendent, well researched. I needed this book (and can feel I’ll be coming back to it again and again).

[angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

a book that took me over a year and a half to finish it, i couldn’t stop talking about it the whole time, and ill probably never stop talking about it. the theory interwoven with case studies really expanded my considerations of madness in a way that offers levity for me. i look forward to returning to this book and continuing to recommend it to thinkers working in a host of fields.

[Kari Besser · Rating 5 out of 5]

How To Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind- so good, is going to stay with me, when I got to ‘it all falls down’ article I cried, when radical compassion truly clicked.
it’s dense so for sure will reread one day ‘This madness hurts, but it also thinks and knows’

[ade · Rating 4 out of 5]

always good to have some theory in the mix, and this book didn’t disappoint! Really bulked up my jazz playlists as well. Thinking now about how to approach more people with radical compassion, including myself and my madnesses.

[xo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the most insightful reads I’ve ever come across. I really wanted to take my time with it and digest everything because there was just so much information (in a good way, of course). I learned a lot about Black radicalism and how “madness” is often seen as something negative even though it doesn’t have to be. Labeling these artists and creatives as “mad” can feel dismissive, especially when you realize that madness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s a clear difference between madness and malice, and I think the language we use really matters when trying to process and understand this book.

La Marr Jurelle Bruce made sure to write about these creatives with such care. He broke down their thoughts and ideas in a way that felt accessible without losing depth. He highlighted so many powerful figures Solange, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Dave Chappelle, Sun Ra, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Gayl Jones, Ntozake Shange, and more.

I genuinely think this is a book everyone should read. Even though it’s packed with information, it never feels overwhelming just rich, thoughtful, and full of insight.

[.!.!. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels like running a marathon. Its a high amount of effort and very rewarding. I definitely think this book gives me useful language and has interesting insights but i do have issues with the structure and style of it. I got a lot out of this because i havent read much in its fields. If i had before, i dont know if there would be much in it for me. I appreciate that it isnt dense in theory. The readability problems come more from style and from a tedium in the way this text pokes at things.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

gorgeous writing, quite easy to read for an academic text. so carefully thought through and explained—i appreciate bruce deliberately leaving certain questions unanswered and not passing judgment on his “mad” objects of study. the lauryn hill chapter was beautiful. still thinking hard abt it all.

[Sophia van Waveren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely in awe about the chapter about Eva and the following about Lilliane. Will have to return often to this book.

[sigh ra · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent excellent excellent

[Isabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

IF YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A REVOLUTIONARY IN ANYWAY READ THIS. YT WOMEN PLEASE READ THIS PLEASE READ THIS

Favorite essay way about Eva’s Man

[vale! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this.

[sarah ashworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

could very well be the best ending i’ve ever read;