A professor at Washington University in Saint Louis is using Kanye West’s recent hospitalization as part of his course’s final lecture on mental illness.
Jeffrey McCune’s lecture, titled “Name One Genius That Ain’t Crazy: Kanye West and the Politics of Self-Diagnosis,” will take a look at how someone like West can be considered both a “genius” and “crazy” at the same time.
“Ultimately, what I’m getting at in this lecture is not just about Kanye; it’s also about the larger notion of crazy and how we utilize it,” McCune said in an interview with Hypebeast.
“I want to give people permission to be enraged,” McCune said. “Give people permission to be upset, to be angry, to be frustrated. Give people permission to have moments where they break. Give people permission to have moments where they experience depression. I want to give them permission to have those moments without being characterized as being some type of deviant figure in the community. I don’t want to take away that experience and call it crazy. It’s reasonable, and it must be addressed with love, compassion, care, generosity.”
Last November, West spent time at Los Angeles’ Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and was placed under observation after suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation.
The lecture will take place April 12 at 6 p.m. at Washington University and is free and open to the public.