Tag Archives: history of the human sciences

New HHS: Mark May at the Institute of Human Relations, Neurofeedback & Selfhood, & More!

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The July 2015 issue of History of the Human Sciences is now online. Among the articles in this issue are one’s on Durkheim’s followers, psychologist Mark May’s influence on the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University, and the relationship between neurofeedback and the self. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“On equal temperament: Tuning, modernity and compromise,” by Michael Halewood. The abstract reads,

In this article, I use Stengers’ (2010) concepts of ‘factish’, ‘requirements’ and ‘obligations’, as well as Latour’s (1993) critique of modernity, to interrogate the rise of Equal Temperament as the dominant system of tuning for western music. I argue that Equal Temperament is founded on an unacknowledged compromise which undermines its claims to rationality and universality. This compromise rests on the standardization which is the hallmark of the tuning system of Equal Temperament, and, in this way, it is emblematic of Latour’s definition of modernity. I further argue that the problem of the tuning of musical instruments is one which epitomizes the modern distinction between the natural and the social. In turn, this bears witness to what Whitehead calls the ‘bifurcation of nature’. Throughout this article, using the work of Stengers and Latour, I seek to use tuning as a case study which allows social research to talk both of the natural and of the social aspects of music and tuning, without recourse to essentialism or simple social construction. In this way, my argument seeks to avoid bifurcating nature.

“Young Durkheimians and the temptation of fascism: The case of Marcel Déat,” by Mathieu Hikaru Desan and Johan Heilbron. The abstract reads, Continue reading New HHS: Mark May at the Institute of Human Relations, Neurofeedback & Selfhood, & More! →

HHS Special Issue: “Vygotsky in His, Our and Future Times”

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The April 2015 issue of History of the Human Sciences is dedicated to “Vygotsky in His, Our and Future Times.” Guest edited by Gordana Jovanovic, the special issue includes a set of introductory reflections from Jerome Bruner on “The Uneasy Relation of Culture and Mind.” A further 10 articles explore various aspects of Vygotsky’s life and work, including the role of history in his work, an examination of the ban on his works in Russia, and his time as a theatre critic. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

Guest editorial: “Vygotsky in his, our and future times,” by Gordana Jovanovic. No abstract provided.

Introductory Reflections: “The uneasy relation of culture and mind,” by Jerome Bruner. No abstract provided.

“Vicissitudes of history in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory,” by Gordana Jovanovic. The abstract reads,

The aim of this article is to explore the ways and forms in which history is present, represented and used in Vygotsky’s theorizing. Given the fact that Vygotsky’s theory is usually described as a cultural-historical theory, the issue of history is necessarily implicated in the theory itself. However, there is still a gap between history as implicated in the theory and an explicit theorizing of history – both in Vygotsky’s writings and in Vygotskian scholarship. Therefore it is expected that it would be fruitful to shed light on some possible pathways that can bridge this gap. The prevailing theoretical role of history in Vygotsky’s theory is to serve as a general framework which provides tools for the development of higher psychic functions. Thus, history is recognized as a formative context of psychic life. Further, history appears in Vygotsky’s writings also as a projected better future. All these uses of history presuppose an idea of history as linear progress. But Vygotsky also argues for a stronger epistemological claim – that history is the most powerful explanatory principle. After conceptual and theoretical reflection on history, some limitations of Vygotsky’s historicizing of the history of psychic development will be pointed out and related to general epistemological problems of historicizing. Finally, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, an edifice built up in the 1930s but relying on the rich philosophical and psychological legacy available up to that time, will be positioned against the pluralistic, postmodern and hermeneutic turn in contemporary social and human sciences.

“Mediation: An expansion of the socio-cultural gaze,” by Harry Daniels. The abstract reads, Continue reading HHS Special Issue: “Vygotsky in His, Our and Future Times” →

UCL /BPS Seminar: Sarah Marks on the Historical Question of Communist Psychiatry

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On February 23rd at 6-7:30, University College London’s Centre for the History of s200_sarah.marksPsychological Disciplines, in conjunction with the British Psychological Society, will be hosting a talk by Sarah Marks titled “Communist Psychiatries? Neurasthenia and Modernization in Czechoslovakia and East Germany.”

Marks will address mid-century traditions within Central European psychiatric disciplines that can be said to have accorded with Soviet ideology. Find the full abstract here. Organized by Professor Sonu Shamdasani. Located at Arts and Humanities Common Room (G24), Foster Court, Malet Place, University College London.

New History of the Human Sciences: Psychopathy, Catholic Psych, & More

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The December 2014 issue of History of the Human Sciences, the final one under the editorship of James Good, is now available. Articles in this issue include ones on the history of psychopathy, Catholic psychology and psychoanalysis, early physiological psychology in Britain, and more. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“Valedictory editorial,” by James M.M. Good. No abstract.

“From phrenology to the laboratory: Physiological psychology and the institution of science in Britain (c.1830–80),” by Tom Quick. The abstract reads,

The claim that mind is an epiphenomenon of the nervous system became academically respectable during the 19th century. The same period saw the establishment of an ideal of science as institutionalized endeavour conducted in laboratories. This article identifies three ways in which the ‘physiological psychology’ movement in Britain contributed to the latter process: first, via an appeal to the authority of difficult-to-access sites in the analysis of nerves; second, through the constitution of a discourse internal to it that privileged epistemology over ontology; and third, in its articulation of a set of rhetorical tools that identified laboratories as economically productive institutions. Acknowledging the integral place of physiological psychology in the institution of science, it is claimed, has the potential to alter our understanding of the significance of current neurological science for historical scholarship.

“Imprimi potest: Roman Catholic censoring of psychology and psychoanalysis in the early 20th century,” by Robert Kugelmann. The abstract reads, Continue reading New History of the Human Sciences: Psychopathy, Catholic Psych, & More →

New Editorship of History of the Human Sciences

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History of the Human Sciences will be under new editorship as of January 2015. Full details on the journal, and its new editors, follow below.

HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES aims to expand our understanding of the human world through a broad interdisciplinary approach. The journal publishes articles from a wide range of fields – including sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography, political science, philosophy, literary theory and criticism, critical theory, art history, linguistics, and the law – that engage with the histories of these disciplines and the interactions between them.  The journal is especially concerned with research that reflexively examines its own historical origins and interdisciplinary influences in an effort to review current practice and to develop new research directions.

James Good, the editor of History of the Human Sciences for 15 years, will be stepping down at the end of 2014. The incoming editors are: Dr Felicity Callard (Durham University) [Editor-in-Chief], Dr Rhodri Hayward  (Queen Mary University of London), Dr Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary University of London). They have assumed responsibility for new submissions since 1 July 2014.  Dr Chris Millard   (Queen Mary University of London) takes over as the new Book Reviews Editor. The journal also welcomes the following new members to the Advisory Editorial Board: Dr Sabine Arnaud, Prof Cornelius Borck, Prof Jamie Cohen-Cole, Prof Stefanos Geroulanos, Prof Sarah Igo, Prof Junko Kitanaka, Prof Rebecca Lemov, Prof Michael Pettit, Dr Chris Renwick, Dr Sadiah Qureshi, Prof Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Prof Marianne Sommer, Prof John Tresch, and Dr Neil Vickers.
 
Each editor is based in a different discipline – geography, history, and literary studies / critical theory – and all have strong cross-disciplinary interests. They look forward to continuing the journal’s rigorous interdisciplinary investigation of the human condition.

 

REGULAR SPECIAL ISSUES

The journal provides comprehensive coverage of a range of themes across the human sciences. Special issues and sections have been devoted to:

  • Historians in the Archive
  • Inventing the Psychosocial
  • Foucault Across the Disciplines
  • Neuroscience, Power and Culture
  • Reflexivity in the Human Sciences
  • The New Art History
  • Rhetoric and Science
  • New Developments in the History of Psychology
  • Writing as a Human Science
  • Hans Blumenberg
  • Constructing the Social
  • Identity, Self and Subject
  • Making Sense of Science
  • Identity, Memory and History
  • Who Speaks? The Voice in the Human Sciences

 The new editors welcome any enquiries about the journal and suggestions for special issues. Please write to:

Felicity Callard felicity.callard@durham.ac.uk

Rhodri Hayward r.hayward@qmul.ac.uk

 
More information is available at the journal’s website (http://hhs.sagepub.com).

New Issue Round-Up! JHBS, HHS, Memorandum

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We’re popping in quickly from our annual summer vacation (read: dissertation writing) with a round up of recent journal issues for your summer reading pleasure. Now online are new issues of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, History of the Human Sciences, and Memorandum: Memory and History in Psychology (Memorandum: Memória e História em Psicologia). Full details, including titles, authors, and abstracts, follow below for each.

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

“Operant Psychology Makes a Splash—In Marine Mammal Training (1955–1965),” by James Arthur Gillaspy Jr., Jennifer L. Brinegar and Robert E. Bailey. The abstract reads,

Despite the wide spread use of operant conditioning within marine animal training, relatively little is known about this unique application of behavioral technology. This article explores the expansion of operant psychology to commercial marine animal training from 1955 to 1965, specifically at marine parks such as Marine Studios Florida, Marineland of the Pacific, Sea Life Park, and SeaWorld. The contributions of Keller and Marian Breland and their business Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE) as well as other early practitioners of behavioral technology are reviewed. We also describe how operant technology was introduced and formalized into procedures that have become the cornerstone of marine animal training and entertainment. The rapid growth of the marine park industry during this time was closely linked to the spread of behavioral technology. The expansion of operant training methods within marine animal training is a unique success story of behavioral technology.

“Beyond the Schools of Psychology 2: A Digital Analysis of Psychological Review, 1904–1923,” by Christopher D. Green, Ingo Feinerer and Jeremy T. Burman. The abstract reads, Continue reading New Issue Round-Up! JHBS, HHS, Memorandum →

New Issue: History of the Human Sciences

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The April issue of History of the Human Sciences is now available online. Among a number of articles that will likely appeal to AHP readers, two  in particular caught my eye for their historical treatments of contemporarily “hot” topics:

  1. David Pilgrim of the University of Liverpool has jumped into the volatile DSM-5 debate. In “Historical resonances of the DSM-5 dispute: American exceptionalism or Eurocentrism?” he expands the boundaries of the oft-American focused discussion with an international scope on the history of psychiatric diagnoses.
  2. In “Deprived of touch: How maternal and sensory deprivation theory converged in shaping early debates over autism,” Mical Raz of the Yale School of Medicine delves into the intertwined histories of autism and sensory deprivation experiments. As she summarizes: “This interplay between the two theories also informed new forms of intervention, including ‘rage reduction therapy’, which served as a precursor for controversial forms of therapy today termed as the ‘attachment therapies’.”

Titles, authors, and abstracts for the full issue are listed below:  Continue reading New Issue: History of the Human Sciences →

New Issue: History of the Human Sciences

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The December 2013 issue of History of the Human Sciences is now online. Included in this issue is an article on psychologist Raleigh M. Drake’s work on musical ability, discussion of cognitivism, and a special section on eros. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“The extent of cognitivism,” by V. P. J. Arponen. The abstract reads,

In this article, cognitivism is understood as the view that the engine of human (individual and collective) action is the intentional, dispositional, or other mental capacities of the brain or the mind. Cognitivism has been criticized for considering the essence of human action to reside in its alleged source in mental processes at the expense of the social surroundings of the action, criticism that has often been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. This article explores the logical extent of the critique of cognitivism, arguing that by positing collectively shared knowledge of criteria as the engine of human action many such critiques themselves display latent cognitivism.

“There is no evidence of ‘latent cognitivism’ in Peter Hacker’s treatment of criteria,” by Michael A. Tissaw. No abstract provided.

“On the extent of cognitivism: A response to Michael Tissaw,” by V. P. J. Arponen. No abstract provided.

“Scent in science and culture,” by Beata Hoffmann. The abstract reads, Continue reading New Issue: History of the Human Sciences →

New Issue of History of the Human Sciences: Historians in the Archive

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A new issue of History of the Human Sciences is now online. The October 2013 release is a special issue on the topic of “Historians in the Archive: Changing Historiographical Practices in the Nineteenth Century.” As described by guest editors Pieter Huistra, Herman Paul and Jo Tollebeek in the introduction, the issue  “explores the influence that archives, in a classic, institutional sense, exerted on the practices of 19th-century historiography. How did the archival turn affect historians’ working manners? How contested was this archival research imperative, with its underlying autopsy principle? And how did it spread geographically, in and outside Europe?” The seven articles that comprise the issue include pieces on the persona of the archival historian, the use of state archives, and the role of debates about testimony in the archival turn. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“Historians in the archive: An introduction,” by Pieter Huistra, Herman Paul, and Jo Tollebeek. The abstract reads,

Historians in the 19th-century were not the first to discover the importance of source materials kept in archival depositories. More than their predecessors, however, scholars working in the historical discipline that the 19th century saw emerge tended to equate professional historical knowledge with knowledge based on primary source research, that is, practically speaking, on knowledge gained from source material that was usually kept in archives. While previous scholarship had paid ample attention to the methods that 19th-century historians employed for the study of such archival material, to the epistemologies they developed in tandem with these methods and to the institutions they created for the study of archival records, this special issue explores the influence that archives, in a classic, institutional sense, exerted on the practices of 19th-century historiography. How did the archival turn affect historians’ working manners? How contested was this archival research imperative, with its underlying autopsy principle? And how did it spread geographically, in and outside Europe?

“Inventing the archive: Testimony and virtue in modern historiography,” by Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen. The abstract reads, Continue reading New Issue of History of the Human Sciences: Historians in the Archive →

New Issue: History of the Human Sciences

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The July 2013 issue of History of the Human Sciences is now online. Included in this issue are articles on the development of the concept of autism in Britain, an interview with Holberg prize winning philosopher Ian Hacking (right), and Adam Smith’s views on animals, among others. Full title, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“How autism became autism: The radical transformation of a central concept of child development in Britain,” by Bonnie Evans. The abstract reads,

This article argues that the meaning of the word ‘autism’ experienced a radical shift in the early 1960s in Britain which was contemporaneous with a growth in epidemiological and statistical studies in child psychiatry. The first part of the article explores how ‘autism’ was used as a category to describe hallucinations and unconscious fantasy life in infants through the work of significant child psychologists and psychoanalysts such as Jean Piaget, Lauretta Bender, Leo Kanner and Elwyn James Anthony. Theories of autism were then associated both with schizophrenia in adults and with psychoanalytic styles of reasoning. The closure of institutions for ‘mental defectives’ and the growth in speech therapy services in the 1960s and 1970s encouraged new models for understanding autism in infants and children. The second half of the article explores how researchers such as Victor Lotter and Michael Rutter used the category of autism to reconceptualize psychological development in infants and children via epidemiological studies. These historical changes have influenced the form and function of later research into autism and related conditions.

“‘I am a philosopher of the particular case’: An interview with the 2009 Holberg prizewinner Ian Hacking,” by Ole Jacob Madsen, Johannes Servan, and Simen Andersen Øyen. The abstract reads, Continue reading New Issue: History of the Human Sciences →