In this book, Eva Yampolsky explores the questions of identity, illusion and suicide in the works of Guy de Maupassant utilizing a historical context which stimulated numerous social, technological and scientific transformations and developments during the 19th century.

Autorentext

Eva Yampolsky received her Ph.D. in French literature from Emory University (USA) and is currently working on a second doctoral degree in the history of medicine at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, her research focuses on the history of psychiatry and the medicalization of suicide in France during the nineteenth century. She was a visiting scholar at the Centre Alexandre Koyré in Paris. Dr. Yampolsky recently edited a collection of Maupassant s short stories on suicide: Guy de Maupassant: Contes sur le suicide (2015). Other publications include: «Du crime à la folie: Une étude historique des approches médicales sur le suicide au début du XIXe siècle en France» in Le suicide: Question individuelle ou sociétale? (forthcoming) and «Le suicide du prince de Condé: Un conflit de pouvoir entre médecine et politique» in Maladie(s) du pouvoir: Histoire, diplomatie et regards politiques (forthcoming).