Dear Frank (et al.),
Yes to all of this. I have in fact asked a neuroscientist colleague and friend of mine who works on precisely these issues to come to this class. But what I don't want to do, by doing that, is to authorize the medical interpretation.
I've been trying to figure out what the analytical problem is here. One is that conditions that were understood in terms of divine and mystical experience (voices, vision) at one time might well be "medicalized" at another time (as Kurt suggested). Anyone who has read the transcripts knows how clear-eyed/voiced Joan comes across, and it is impossible to suggest after reading these that she was in any way incapacitated. It seems that the two strands of interpretation requires accepting that there is something external/ulterior to either "mysticize" or too "medicalize" about Joan's voice and visions, and this is where the problem lies. The ways in which the explanations push forward is that the visions are either divine (we accept Joan's claims), or biological (we assume she just assumed they were divine). One explanation de-legitimizes the other. In Bynum's treatments of eating/food, she figured out how to undo this tricky knot. But it seems to me (and I have only read a small portion of the vast amount written on Joan) that the difference is that eating or not eating is a choice made by the subject. Bynum explained why that choice made sense in a medieval environment that didn't need to be equated or credited with anorexia. Joan herself says repeatedly that the visions are not hers. The visions and voiced are presented as exteriorized. So it can't be a question of a choice that Joan made. And it seems reasonable to interrogate the voices and visions. Not in an effort to delegitimize them. Or her. But to understand the story.
Thinking aloud,
cecilia