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Biology 202
2001 Third Web Report
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Biology 202
2002 First Paper
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Biology 202, Spring 2005
Second Web Papers
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The Mad Gene: Creativity and Mental Illness

by Student Contributor

One could argue that if there was anything cliché about Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind, it was the recycled theme of the "mad genius." Russell Crow played John Nash, the brilliant, asocial mathematician who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. It's hard to critique the novel as cliché, however, because the concept of the "mad genius" wasn't cultivated – Nash, indeed, suffered from serious mental illness. Nash wasn't the only creative thinker to contribute to the "mad genius" phenomenon; twentieth century American poet Sylvia Plath, who was believed to have suffered from severe bipolar disorder, committed suicide in 1963. Nineteenth century painter, Vincent Van Gogh, spent the later years of his life at the St. Remy Asylum after his infamous act of mutilating his ear. The list goes on. The observation that there exists a link between creativity and mental illness is not a recent one; Aristotle once wrote that eminent philosophers, politicians, poets, and artists all have tendencies toward "melancholia" (1).

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2003 Second Web Paper
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