Tag Archives: Alan Collins

New JHBS: Mine Detection Dogs, Memory Improvement, Robert Owen, & the Street Corner Society

The winter 2014 issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences is now online. Included in this issue are articles describing the development of mine detector dogs during World War Two, late-nineteenth century advice on improving natural memory, parallels between debates over Robert Owen’s role in the history of sociology and contemporary sociology, and the roots of sociologist William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“In Dogs We Trust? Intersubjectivity, Response-Able Relations, and the Making of Mine Detector Dogs,” by Robert G. W. Kirk. The abstract reads,

The utility of the dog as a mine detector has divided the mine clearance community since dogs were first used for this purpose during the Second World War. This paper adopts a historical perspective to investigate how, why, and to what consequence, the use of minedogs remains contested despite decades of research into their abilities. It explores the changing factors that have made it possible to think that dogs could, or could not, serve as reliable detectors of landmines over time. Beginning with an analysis of the wartime context that shaped the creation of minedogs, the paper then examines two contemporaneous investigations undertaken in the 1950s. The first, a British investigation pursued by the anatomist Solly Zuckerman, concluded that dogs could never be the mine hunter’s best friend. The second, an American study led by the parapsychologist J. B. Rhine, suggested dogs were potentially useful for mine clearance. Drawing on literature from science studies and the emerging subdiscipline of “animal studies,” it is argued that cross-species intersubjectivity played a significant role in determining these different positions. The conceptual landscapes of Zuckerman and Rhine’s disciplinary backgrounds are shown to have produced distinct approaches to managing cross-species relations, thus explaining how diverse opinions on minedog can coexist. In conclusion, it is shown that the way one structures relationships between humans and animals has profound impact on the knowledge and labor subsequently produced, a process that cannot be separated from ethical consequence.

“Advice for Improving Memory: Exercising, Strengthening, and Cultivating Natural Memory, 1860–1910,” by Alan F. Collins. The abstract reads,

The idea that human memory can be improved appears to be as ancient as the concept of memory itself. Continue reading New JHBS: Mine Detection Dogs, Memory Improvement, Robert Owen, & the Street Corner Society

BPS ‘Stories of Psychology’ Symposium, October 2013

The British Psychological Society‘s History of Psychology Centre is hosting its third annual history of psychology symposium October 15, 2013. This year’s event, “Stories of Psychology,” looks at the history of psychology and the arts and how each field has influenced the other. The day’s events are hosted by Alan Collins of Lancaster University. Full program details follow below.

‘Stories of Psychology’ Symposium
Psychology and the Arts
The third annual history of psychology symposium

Tuesday 15 October 2013 at the Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

10.30am-4pm (including buffet lunch)

Convened by Dr Alan Collins (Lancaster University)

This year’s theme will reflect some of the many ways that the arts (music, literature, visual arts) have influenced the development of psychological understanding and vice versa.

Speakers:
Dr Alexandra Lewis (University of Aberdeen)
‘Psychology and the novel: Trauma and memory in the 19th century’

Professor Nicholas Wade (University of Dundee)
‘Toying with perception: Philosophical toys and the simulation of motion in early 19th-century London’

Dr James Kennaway (University of Newcastle)
‘Musical mind control: The history of an idea’

Dr Greg Tate (University of Surrey)
‘John Keats’s principled feeling: Knowledge and emotion in Romantic poetry, medicine and psychology’

Dr Nick Lambert (Birkbeck, University of London)
‘The computer in the cave’

This is a public event and all are welcome. The programme has been designed to have general appeal as well as academic validity for historians of psychology. 

Cost (including lunch): £12 (£10 BPS members)

To register click here 

For more information, e-mail hopc@bps.org.uk or call Peter Dillon Hooper on 0116 252 9528.

This event is supported by Senate House Library, home of the British Psychological Society’s library collection.

BPS Symposium: Stories of Psychology

The British Psychological Society‘s History of Psychology Centre is hosting a free history of psychology symposium on October 11, 2011. The symposium, Stories of Psychology: Archives, Histories and What They Tell Us, has been organized by prominent historians of psychology Alan Collins (right) and Geoff Bunn and will take place at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre in London. Full symposium details can be found on the History of Psychology Centre’s website and are listed below.



History of Psychology Symposium
Tuesday 11 October 2011 at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
Stories of Psychology: Archives, Histories and What They Tell Us
1.45pm-5.30pm

Convened by Dr Alan Collins (University of Lancaster) and Dr Geoff Bunn (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Speakers:

Professor Richard Bentall (University of Liverpool)
How we have changed the way we think about madness

Professor Michael Billig (Loughborough University)
Archival knowledge versus personal reminiscence: The case of the social psychologist Henri Tajfel

Dr Rhodri Hayward (Queen Mary, University of London)
Psychological knowledge and the making of the modern state

Graham Richards (Independent scholar and former Director of the History of Psychology Centre)
The psychology of archives – especially archives of psychology

Professor Sally Shuttleworth (St Anne’s College, Oxford)
Studying the child in the nineteenth century

The symposium will be followed by a reception in the Wellcome Library Reading Room to celebrate the collaboration between the Wellcome Library and the British Psychological Society and to mark the transfer to the Library of the main BPS archives.

Advance free registration is essential – register here

For more information, e-mail hopc@bps.org.uk or call Peter Dillon Hooper on 0116 252 9528.