Minds and Brains in Everyday Life. Embedding and Negotiating Scientific Concepts in Popular Discourses
Type: Call for Papers
Date: March 6, 2016
Location: United Kingdom
Subject Fields: British
History / Studies, Health and Health Care, History of Science,
Medicine, and Technology, Psychology, Childhood and Education
Minds and Brains in Everyday Life:
Embedding and Negotiating Scientific Concepts in Popular Discourses
Symposium, to be held on 8 and 9 June 2016. The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
Hope Park Square. Edinburgh. EH8 9NW
The
aim of this 2-day symposium is to enable an interdisciplinary
discussion of how the mind and brain have, historically and in
contemporary society, figured in everyday understandings of ourselves.
The symposium will address questions such as: How are the mind and brain
conceptualized, imagined and quantified in everyday life? How do
(neuro)psychological discourses influence the understanding of the mind
and brain outside of expert circles? How do these inform concepts of the
self, social practices and social relationships in fields such as
education, parenting, mental health and law? How do ideas of the mind
and brain figure in popular media discourses and with what consequences?
Finally, how can we use such analyses to reflect on historical and
contemporary configurations of humanity?
There are open slots for
presentations by researchers from a wide range of disciplines including,
but not limited to, sociology, neuroscience, history of science and
knowledge, science and technology studies, philosophy, arts and
literature, and psychology. We welcome proposals for 20–30 minute
presentations.
Please send abstracts of up to 500 words as Word
attachments by March 6th, 2016. Please include your full name, a short
CV, affiliation, email address, phone number, and the title of your
presentation. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 18th, 2016.
Abstracts should be sent to the organisers:
Tineke Broer: tineke.broer(a)ed.ac.uk
Susanne Schregel: s.schregel(a)uni-koeln.de
Detailed Outline
Throughout
history, the mind, the brain, and the qualities that have been ascribed
to them, have fascinated scientists and the public alike. While
concepts of the mind and the brain are partly shaped by our everyday
experience, scientific debates have contributed much to our
understanding of cognitive and mental capacities. The rise of modern
psychology and psychological testing since the late 19th
century for instance promoted the idea that cognitive capacities could
be possessed to different and quantifiable degrees. The invention of the
IQ in particular contributed to the idea that intelligence could be
measured and quantified within a wider public. Furthermore,
neuroscientific discourses are being increasingly adopted in public
life, and taken to provide objective information about human development
and capabilities. This has already had tangible consequences for
approaches to parenting, education, mental health, and law, among
others.
Not surprisingly, the configuration of everyday
understandings and everyday life (or, in a Foucauldian sense, of
subjectivities) through psychological and neuroscientific concepts has
been a prominent analytical and empirical issue across social history,
the history of knowledge and science as well as social studies of
science, albeit in different ways. The aim of this symposium is to
connect these diverse fields of study and enable joint discussions of
how the mind and brain have, historically and in the contemporary era,
figured in everyday understandings of ourselves. We ask questions such
as: How are the mind and brain conceptualized, imagined and quantified
in everyday life? How do (neuro)psychological discourses influence the
understanding of the mind and brain outside of expert circles? How do
they inform concepts of the self, social practices and social
relationships, in fields such as education, parenting, mental health and
law? How do ideas of the mind and brain figure in popular media
discourses and with what consequences? Finally, how can we use such
analyses to reflect on historical and contemporary configurations of
humanity?
To enable a joint discussion, we particularly suggest five foci of attention:
1. Forums: A
starting point of discussions about the mind and brain in everyday life
is the analysis of the forums in which such debates evolve. This does
not just imply the question of where popular discourses around
mind and brain can be found; we also need to understand how knowledge
about mental and cognitive capacities and characteristics circulates
between scientific and everyday understandings, and the transformations
of knowledge these travels imply. Since the 20th century in
particular, the relation between science/psychology and the public has
been highly mediated. For instance, some of the major controversies
around intelligence testing took place in the (popular) media. In a
similar vein, everyday interpretations and practices around the mind and
the brain today are guided by popular publications and by policy
discourses. We therefore invite papers that scrutinise the forums of
public engagement with science, including the ways in which popular
discourses may influence scientific conceptualizations of mind and
brain. Concrete examples of such forums could be: newspapers, popular
books, self-help literature, letters to the editor, radio, talk shows,
or parenting programmes and policy documents drawing on (recent)
psychological and neuroscientific research.
2. Modes of speaking/modes of authorisation:
A further question relates to what kinds of publics are
(co-)constituted within such forums, how these publics engage with
scientific discourses and with what consequences, and in particular,
what modes of speaking they employ when discussing the mind and the
brain. Modes of speaking could vary from being objective through to
being ironic, relating to modes of authorisation or empowerment. In our
view, addressing questions like these may help to understand the
relevance of discourses about mind and brain beyond a simplistic model
of top-down power, and beyond putting citizens in the role of either
‘accepting’ or ‘rejecting’ scientific discourses.
3. Imaginaries of the mind and the brain: With
our third focus, we wish to draw attention to imaginaries of the mind
and the brain. How can we speak about and make sense of the mind and the
brain? What images are available for scientific and non-expert
discourses alike? Do citizens draw on a dualistic understanding of the
mind and the brain: for example, are they mostly materialistic in their
views, or do they adopt yet another position? New brain imaging
techniques and applications such as neurofeedback (where people learn to
influence their brain waves in order to control mood or reach other
goals) may be used in creative and unexpected ways by people in order to
conceptualise their brain, and current sociological research has
started to analyse these conceptualisations in relation to different
techniques. Psychological interpretations have also given rise to
certain social ‘characters’ such as the ‘gifted child’ or the
‘underachiever’. Thus, discourses about mind and brain link to
culturally rich and complex ways of constituting meaning, and we invite
papers that explore such understandings, metaphors and imaginaries.
4. Marketing minds and brains: Commercial
interests have capitalised on scientific and popular interest
surrounding minds and brains, and, particularly, the drive to optimise
these. In the 1960s, for instance, a bestselling book title encouraged
its readers to ‘Know Your Own I.Q.’ (Eysenck 1962). Another publication
in the 1970s called upon particularly worried – or especially ambitious –
parents to test their children’s intelligence (Serebriakoff/Langer
1979). Not even pets were spared, as books like the ‘Definitive I.Q.
Test for Cats and I.Q. Test for Cat Owners’ (Miller 1992) illustrate.
Recently, so-called ‘brain training games’ have attracted a large market
of older and younger people alike, in which the aim is for people to
improve their ‘brain age’. Hence, the profitability of cognitive and
brain discourses is an interesting, if controversial, phenomenon. It may
lead to a range of questions concerning, for example, the relation
between science and the market, products as a mediator for scientific
concepts, and the way in which these discourses and products can
strengthen ideas around self-improvement and remaining healthy.
5. The status of science, knowledge production, and everyday life: Finally,
we invite papers that reflect on the status of (neuro)psychological
sciences, knowledge production and everyday life. Currently, scholars
such as Brian Wynne and Nikolas Rose have argued that science is
simultaneously highly regarded and at times the subject of
public scrutiny and scepticism. Accepting, but also critically engaging
with this ambivalence, and looking at the ways in which scientific
concepts are negotiated by a wider public is highly relevant in order to
understand the complex relations between science, everyday life, and
subjectivities. We therefore encourage applications that contribute to
continuing debates on the political character of knowledge and the
co-construction of human subjects in and through knowledge practices
from an everyday perspective.
There are open slots for
presentations by researchers from a wide range of disciplines including,
but not limited to, sociology, neuroscience, the history of science and
knowledge, science and technology studies, philosophy, arts and
literature, and psychology. We welcome proposals for 20–30 minute
presentations.
While our examples in this outline are mainly from the 20th
century onwards, the symposium is not limited to this time period, and
we welcome papers addressing previous periods, or even the future (e.g.
by using science fiction). Similarly, our examples are mostly situated
in Western Europe and the USA, but we would welcome papers discussing
configurations of the mind and brain in other countries.
Please
send abstracts of up to 500 words as Word attachments by March 6th,
2016. Please include your full name, a short CV, affiliation, phone
number, and the title of your presentation. Notifications of acceptance
will be sent by March 18th, 2016.
Abstracts should be sent to the organisers:
Tineke Broer: tineke.broer(a)ed.ac.uk
Susanne Schregel: s.schregel(a)uni-koeln.de
The
Symposium will take place at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities Edinburgh. The Institute for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities was established in 1969 to promote interdisciplinary research
in the humanities and social sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
It provides an international, interdisciplinary and autonomous space for
discussion and debate.
This Symposium is funded by the Royal
Society of Edinburgh Susan Manning Workshops, in memory of IASH’s former
Director, Susan Manning, and the EURIAS Fellowship
program/Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions – COFUND Programme – FP7.
For more information, please see
Contact Info:
Susanne Schregel
Contact Email: