AHP readers will be interested in a virtual book launch for Material Cultures of Psychiatry, edited by Monika Ankele and Benoît Majerus, taking place next week. Registration for the event can be found here. The event is described as follows:

Objects have long been and still are shaping our ideas about psychiatric institutions and their history. In many cases, it is exceptional objects such as caged beds or binding belts that we associate with the history of psychiatry, rather than everyday cultural objects such as flowers or a blanket. These outstanding objects are often used as a synonym for psychiatry and the way psychiatric patients were treated, yet very little is known about the agency of objects and their appropriation by staff and patients.

Catherine Coleborne, Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and Bart Marius, Artistic Director at the Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent, Belgium, will discuss with the editors of the book and two of its authors, how a material-based approach opens up new perspectives on the agency and imagination of men and women inside psychiatry.