Call for papers Symposium: Psychiatry in the 19th and 20th centuries from a transnational perspective
Date: 21-22 November 2018
Location: Luxembourg
Organisers: Eva Andersen & Benoît Majerus (C2DH, University of luxembourg)
Submission deadline: 22 June 2018
Language: English
Keynote speaker: Waltraud Ernst (Oxford Brookes University)
In recent years the buzzword in historical research has been “transnational history”. Although over the past 15 years some historians have begun to integrate this perspective into the history of medicine and psychiatry, especially with respect to colonial history, this research area remains underdeveloped (Ernst and Mueller 2010; Roelcke et al. 2010; Novella and Huertas 2011; Burnham 2012; Ernst 2013; Hashimoto 2013; Marks 2015; Novella 2016; Müller 2017).
As Roelcke et al. put it, “[…] any up-to-date history of knowledge […] needs to take forms of transnational communication and transfer into account” (Roelcke et al. 2010, 8). Although it goes without saying that there have been transnational contacts and transfers of knowledge in the psychiatric field — translations of books, international conferences, correspondence, memberships in associations, international travel — research on these processes remains rare. This raises the urgent question of how to approach research on psychiatric history with a transnational framework in mind.
This symposium therefore aims to frame the history of psychiatry within two pillars of transnational research, encouraging participants to move away from the concept of the nation (state) that has long defined and guided research in all historical fields (Clavin 2010; Iriye 2013; Bayly et al. 2006; Laqua 2013; Haupt and Kocka 2012). Firstly, adopting a transnational approach to history allows us to break free from national constructions and boundaries, but at the same time we should not forget that transnational history is also intrinsically linked to the nation itself, as the term implies. Secondly, and more importantly, writing a transnational history of psychiatry involves looking at “links and flows, and want[ing] to track people, ideas, products, processes and patterns that operate over, across, through, beyond, above, under or in-between polities and societies”, as Iriye and Saunier have asserted (Iriye and Saunier 2009, XVIII). Rather than comparing two or three national histories of psychiatry, the goal of this symposium is to focus on the “in-betweenness” and interconnectedness of these histories.
For the full CFP, please refer to the pdf.
Submission guidelines
Submission deadline: 22 June 2018
Format: conference paper
Word limit for abstracts: max. 2000 characters (without spaces)
How to submit: send an abstract and a short CV to eva.andersen@uni.lu.
A maximum of 6 to 8 papers will be accepted. Presentations will last 20 minutes with the possibility to ask questions (10 minutes).
Contact details
Eva Andersen (C2DH, University of Luxembourg): eva.andersen@uni.lu
