“Men with Queer Nerves”: The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
In the late nineteenth century, visitors to Maine observed something strange: French-Canadian lumberjacks who, at the slightest stimulus, seemed to jump, strike out with their limbs, or mimic languages they could not speak. Ross Bullen introduces us to these so-called “Jumping Frenchmen” and to their greatest investigator, George M. Beard, who saw a link in their behavior between religious frenzy and neurasthenia. more
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Warburg’s Werewolf: An Anamnesis
Aby Warburg spent his life finding forms that could hold their own against the flow of time. All the while, as Kevin Dann explores, he was churning on the brink of madness with the sense that he himself was changing — into a terrifying animal. What kind of history would a werewolf write? more
