CfP "Material Cultures of Psychiatry" (3-4 May 2018, Hamburg)
Date: 3-4 May 2018, Hamburg
Organisers:
Dr Monika Ankele (Department for History
and Ethics of Medicine at the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf) and
Prof. Benoît Majerus (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History,
University of Luxembourg)
Deadline:
15 December 2017
Languages:
German, English
In
the past, our ideas of psychiatric hospitals and their history have
been shaped by objects like straitjackets, cribs and binding belts.
These powerful objects are often used as a synonym for psychiatry and
the way psychiatric patients are treated. But what do we really know
about the social life (see Majerus 2011) of psychiatric patients and the
stories of less spectacular objects in the everyday
life of psychiatric institutions? What do we know about the material
cultures of these places in general?
The
workshop will use the term “material cultures” very broadly and in the
plural. This term refers not only to medical objects, objects of
therapy and objects of care, but also to everyday cultural objects. The
latter are subject to change when they enter the realm of psychiatry,
where they become part of the specific cultural praxis of psychiatric
institutions: a bed clearly changes its meaning
in a psychiatric hospital, but so do flowers, a mirror and a blanket.
The term “material cultures” also includes phenomena that have a
material dimension like air, light, colours and sound (see Kalthoff et
al. 2016). The use of the term in the plural should
make us aware of the different, often competing cultural practices that
emerge when we focus on the application and appropriation of objects
and materials by patients, doctors and nursing staff. It also raises the
question of the extent to which material cultures
influence both therapeutic treatment and the production of knowledge.
Objects as agents
Objects
can be described as agents since they have a stabilising, destabilising
and transforming impact on the practice of psychiatry;
they organise social relationships, influence or predetermine the
practice of psychiatry, have an impact on power relations and create
specific self-relations and relationships with others. Presentations
should analyse objects from the history of psychiatry
as agents and explore their fields of action.
Means of appropriation and expropriation
The
(artistic) works of patients, as found in historical collections such
as the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg and the Morgenthaler
Collection
in Bern, are impressive testimonies of the manifold ways that patients
appropriated the different materials of psychiatric hospitals, including
remnants, clippings, bedsprings and much more. They are part of a
material culture of psychiatry and bear its traces.
In parallel, patients’ works as well as personal belongings were
subject to expropriation, interpreted as symptoms of a disease or used
for the implementation of new (power) relations. Appropriation concerned
not only materials but also therapeutic objects
or objects of care that had to be appropriated by patients, doctors and
nursing staff.
The
term “scenography” refers to the design of stage scenery. It draws
attention to the spatial arrangement of people and things as well as
the scripts that are inscribed in an object, which the spatial
arrangement (of a ward, a day room, a hall) should express. It poses the
question of how objects and material phenomena structured the
perception, communication and movements of patients, nursing
staff and doctors, and how these spatial arrangements of objects and
agents influenced the interactions and power relations between them.
Transformations
How
do objects of therapy and objects of care, as well as everyday cultural
objects, materials and material phenomena, acquire their specific
meaning for the various agents of a psychiatric institution? What
transformation process do they go through? What transformations do these
objects undergo in practice? Objects should also be seen as an
interface, where ways of thinking and acting meet, condense,
shift and materialise.
Economies
Examining
the material cultures of psychiatry involves looking at questions of
economy: the economy of the institution, individual economies
like the exchange of materials and things, the economical use of
materials, etc. In what ways do the economic conditions of the
institution influence the material cultures of psychiatry and how do
these cultures affect the economy of the institution?
Presentations
should take into account the social and cultural background of objects
of psychiatry, their various meanings, their involvement
in actions, their ability to act and to shape social and spatial
relations as well as their reference to practices of knowledge, specific
discourses and power relations. Corresponding approaches referring to
the “material turn” are the focus of much interest
in the cultural and social sciences and have been the subject of
research in the history of medicine, but they have been neglected in
historical research on psychiatry, at least in the German-speaking
realm.
Possible research objects
for your presentations
could be the following: beds, baths, doors, corridors, walls, bed
screens, tables, chairs, bedside tables and bath tubs; tools, dishes,
knives, spoons and forks; murals, bars, fences, windows; bowling alleys;
keys and locks; paintings, books, plants, flowers,
mirrors; light, darkness, water, electricity, smells; syringes,
needles, sleeping pills and tranquilisers, straitjackets, binding belts;
blankets, pillows, sheets, clothes, white coats, fabrics; straw,
seaweed, horse hair, paper, packing material, cigarettes;
telephones, watchs, typewriters; food, etc.
We
are also interested in discussing the epistemic value of a material
approach for the history of psychiatry and its possible additions to
or corrections of this history. What agents, practices and social
interactions come into view when we focus on the material dimensions of
psychiatry? What agents and practices that previously went unnoticed
gain significance by focusing on the material cultures
of psychiatry? And what new perspectives on the psychiatric institution
open up?
Please submit an abstract (max. 2000 characters) with a short CV to
m.ankele@uke.de by 15 December 2017. Inventive
approaches and presentations are especially welcome. We would also be delighted to receive proposals for artistic work.
The
workshop is part of the research project “Bed and Bath: Objects and
Spaces of Therapy in Psychiatry of the 19th and 20th century” (head
of project: Univ. Prof. Dr Heinz-Peter Schmiedebach), funded by the
German Research Foundation. We are not yet sure that travel and
accommodation costs will be fully covered.
It
is planned to publish the papers presented at the workshop in an edited
book. The contributions (15 to 20 papers) should be submitted by
10 July 2018 to ensure a quick turnaround.
Bibliography:
Frank,
Michael C./Gockel, Bettina/Hauschild, Thomas/Kimmich, Dorothee/Malke,
Kirsten: Fremde Dinge – zur Einführung, in Frank, Michael C./Gockel,
Bettina/Hauschild, Thomas/Kimmich, Dorothee/Malke,
Kirsten (eds): Fremde Dinge. (= Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 1)
Bielefeld 2007, 9-16.
Ledebur,
Sophie: Schreiben und Beschreiben. Zur epistemischen Funktion von
psychiatrischen Krankenakten, ihrer Archivierung und deren Übersetzung
in Fallgeschichten. In: Berichte zur
Wissenschaftsgeschichte 34 (2011), 102‐124.
Schäfer,
Armin: Lebendes Dispositiv. Hand beim Schreiben, in Borck,
Cornelius/Schäfer, Armin (eds): Psychographien. Zürich, Berlin 2006,
241-265.
Kalthoff,
Herbert/Cress, Torsten/Röhl, Tobias: Einleitung. Materialität in Kultur
und Gesellschaft, in: Kalthoff, Herbert/Cress, Torsten/Röhl, Tobias
(eds): Materialität. Herausforderungen
für die Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften. Paderborn 2016.
Majerus,
Benoît: La baignore, le lit et la porte. La vie sociale des objets de
la psychiatrie, in: Genèses 2011/1 (82), 95-119.
Topp,
Leslie: Freedom and the Cage: Modern Architecture and Society in
Central Europe 1890-1914, Penn State University Press 2017.
Dr Monika Ankele
Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf
Zentrum für Psychosoziale Medizin
Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin (Geb. N30b)
Prof. Benoît Majerus
Université du Luxembourg
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Maison des Sciences Humaines