How does the author explain the connections between culture-bound syndromes and different societies/cultures?

Readings:

Bures, Frank. 2016. The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes. Brooklyn: Melville House, 3-47.

Hammond, Claudia. 2013. “Mental Health: Hikikomori.” BBC World Service. July 7, 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bdmw7

Shapiro, Hugh. 2014. “Operatic Escapes: Performing Madness in Neuropsychiatric Beijing.” In Science and Technology in Modern China, 1880s-1940s, edited by Jing Tsu and Benjamin A. Elman, 297-325. Leiden: Brill.

1.How does the author explain the connections between culture-bound syndromes and different societies/cultures? Give three examples. Did they change over time? How does the author think of “narratives” playing in the understanding of these syndromes?

2.According to the author, what is hikikomori? Looking at it from the perspective of medical history, how was the understanding of hikikomori changing over time? What was the connection between hikikomori and societies (Japan and other countries)?

3.In the article of “Operatic Escapes,” how did the patients appropriate the cultural authority of the drama? How does the author explain the reasons that mentally ill patients took up operatic performance? What gave the power of operatic script?