Category Archives: Exhibit

Online Exhibit about ‘Bibliotherapy’ in WWI

Exhibit, ,
via ALA Archives

“Books,” exclaimed one man to another, apropos of the bookcart’s arrival, “They’re all that hold reason together.”

 

 

 

As part of an exhibit on display at the Homer D. Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut, doctoral student Mary Mahoney has written and curated an online exhibit about the use of literature as therapy for soldiers during the first World War, titled Books as Medicine: Studies in reading, its history, and the enduring belief in its power to heal.

Guided through sections, the site visitor learns about the (American) Library War Service, Hospital Libraries, Prescribing Books, Contagion (both medical and social), and Science (in which you can use a form from a neuropsychiatric hospital to ‘prescribe’ a book as therapy, and peruse others’ prescriptions).

Experience the exhibit here. 

I Am Psyched! Pop-Up Exhibit National Tour Starts Now!

Events, Exhibit, General, Video, , , , , ,

The I Am Psyched! exhibit, first launched as part of the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum Day Live in 2016, is hitting the road! The pop-up exhibit will be at Howard University tomorrow through Thursday, February 23rd, in celebration of both Howard University’s 150th anniversary and the American Psychological Association’s 125th anniversary. Kick off events tomorrow February 21st will be followed by three live interviews on APA’s Facebook page starting at1:15 PM (ET):

1:15 PM – Drs. Jessica Henderson Daniel and Shari Miles-Cohen will discuss Dr. Henderson Daniel’s storied career and how she made history by being elected as the first African American woman to lead the Association.

1:45 PM – Drs. Nicole Monteiro and Carlota Ocampo will discuss their research, what inspired them to go into psychology, and words of wisdom for the next generation of women of color psychologists.

2:15 PM – The winner and runners-up of the “I am Psyched” student poster session competition will discuss their winning posters and what has inspired them to pursue careers in psychology.

The exhibit is a collaboration between the APA’ Public Interest Directorate’s Women’s Programs Office, the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, and Psychology’s Feminist Voices. The exhibit is described as follows:

The I am Psyched! National Tour launches on Feb. 21, 2017 with a three-day installation at Howard University (HU) in Washington, D.C., celebrating both APA’s 125th anniversary and HU’s 150th anniversary. The opening includes remarks from APA President-elect Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD, ABPP, and members of HU’s senior administration, followed by round tables of women psychologists discussing how they have used psychology to make positive social change. Bringing full circle the past, present and future of women of color in psychology, the program will conclude with the grand opening of the I am Psyched! at Howard University exhibit and a juried poster session of empirical research by or about women of color conducted by HU graduate students. APA and HU are grateful to the National Black Employees Association and our other funders for helping to defray the cost of this event.

The second stop on the national tour is Drexel University, in Philedelphia from Feb. 27 through March 10. Dorothy Charbonnier, PhD, chair of the department of psychology, will host an opening reception with Drexel University President John Anderson Fry and other high level administrators, trustees and donors in attendance.

The I Am Psyched! exhibit will also be making the following stops on its national tour:

Tour Dates
Howard University, Washington, D.C. Feb, 21-23, 2017
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. Feb, 27-March 10, 2017
St. John’s University, Queens, N.Y. March 14-17, 2017
Pace University, New York, N.Y. (tentative) March 20-21, 2017
University of Memphis, Memphis, Tenn. April 5-8, 2017
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. April 28-30, 2017

Follow the full tour on Twitter with the hashtag 

New Book & Touring Exhibit on Ramón y Cajal: The Beautiful Brain

Books, Exhibit, News,


The Beautiful Brain, a new book and touring exhibit documenting the work of Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal just launched. As the New York Times describes,

Decades before these technologies existed, a man hunched over a microscope in Spain at the turn of the 20th century was making prescient hypotheses about how the brain works. At the time, William James was still developing psychology as a science and Sir Charles Scott Sherrington was defining our integrated nervous system.

Meet Santiago Ramón y Cajal, an artist, photographer, doctor, bodybuilder, scientist, chess player and publisher. He was also the father of modern neuroscience.

More details on the book, The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal
(By Larry Swanson, Eric Newman, Alfonso Araque, and Janet Dubinsky) can be found here, while the exhibit is scheduled to appear at the following locations:

The Beautiful Brain Tour Schedule
January 28 – May 21, 2017 | Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis MN
September 5 – December 3, 2017 | Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
January 9 – March 31, 2018 | Grey Art Gallery, New York University
New York City, New York, USA
May 2, 2018 – January 1, 2019 | MIT museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
January 27 – April 7, 2019 | Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Mesmerism @ The British Library

Blogs, Events, Exhibit, General, , , ,

The British Library has somewhat of a mesmeristic theme going on with their programming this season:

On their Untold Lives blog, Christopher Green (a different Chris Green than ours at York) writes about the career of Annie De Montford, a popular mesmerist who worked in the UK and the US in the 1880s. Read it here.

De Montford is also featured in the library’s ongoing exhibit Victorian Entertainments: There Will Be Fun, along with other historical figures who worked as magicians, pantomimes, and conjurors. The show is free, and on until March 12th. More information can be found here.

Not least, a talk will be given on March 6th by Wendy Moore titled The Mesmerist: Science vs Superstition in the Victorian era. From the flyer: ”

“…when mesmerism wafted over the Channel from France, physician John Elliotson was intrigued and resolved to harness its benefits for medicine. But his surgeon friend Thomas Wakley, editor of the influential Lancet, was disturbed and soon determined to expunge all trace of mesmerism from British shores.

Their battle throws into sharp focus fundamental questions about the fine dividing line between medicine and quackery, between science and superstition, in a Victorian society bedazzled by the magic of the music hall. And it poses questions – about hypnotism and other alternative therapies – for us today too.”

Further details with time and location can be found here. 

 

“Bedlam: The Asylum & Beyond” at the Wellcome Collection

Exhibit, General, , , ,

Now on at the Wellcome Collection in London is an exhibit on “Bedlam: The Asylum & Beyond.” The exhibit, which runs until January 15th 2017, is described on their website as follows:

Follow the rise and fall of the mental asylum and explore how it has shaped the complex landscape of mental health today. Reimagine the institution, informed by the experiences of the patients, doctors, artists and reformers who inhabited the asylum or created alternatives to it.

Today asylums have largely been consigned to history but mental illness is more prevalent than ever, as our culture teems with therapeutic possibilities: from prescription medications and clinical treatment to complementary medicines, online support, and spiritual and creative practices. Against this background, the exhibition interrogates the original ideal that the asylum represented – a place of refuge, sanctuary and care – and asks whether and how it could be reclaimed.

Taking Bethlem Royal Hospital as a starting point, ‘Bedlam: the asylum and beyond’ juxtaposes historical material and medical records with individual testimonies and works by artists such as David Beales, Richard Dadd, Dora García, Eva Kotátková, Madlove: A Designer Asylum, Shana Moulton, Erica Scourti, Javier Téllez and Adolf Wölfli, whose works reflect or reimagine the institution, as both a physical and a virtual space.