AshehougAgency

The Inner Darkness

Depression is a universal phenomenon. There is hardly anyone who has not experienced the loss of meaning and enjoyment of life which depression involves. About 30% of the population in the Western world needs treatment for this affliction at some point in their lives, and anti-depressive drugs are among the highest selling medicines in the world today.

Modern medical science has achieved impressive results by treating depression as a physically caused sickness that can be treated biochemically. The danger, however, is that other dimensions of it are looked upon as less significant. In Inner Darkness the author explores the older and more complex conception of melancholia. In a fascinating discussion of the cultural history of melancholia, Espen Hammer shows how the understanding of depression has changed historically. Focusing upon temporality, modernity and nihilism, the concept of melancholia is viewed in relation to literature, psychoanalysis, modern art and philosophy. How can we cope with melancholia and respond to it? What characterizes the contemporary experience of nihilism? This book offers a challenging examination of a theme that seldom permits easy answers.

"Espen Hammer has written an entertaining essay, yet offering insight and knowledge. He is obviously engaged in his subject and manages to transmit his enthusiasm to his reader"
(Erle Sørheim, Prosa , journal of Non-Fiction Authors and Translators)

First published: 2004, Universitetsforlaget
Translations: Swedish ("Melankoli. En filosofisk essä" published by Daidalos, Gothenburg)

Espen Hammer: Biography and bibliography

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