This 2-day symposium aims to enable interdisciplinary discussion of how mind and brain figure in everyday understandings of ourselves, both historically and in contemporary society. The symposium addresses questions such as: How are mind and brain conceptualized, imagined and quantified in everyday life? How do (neuro)psychological discourses influence understandings of 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 mind and brain figure in popular media discourses and what are consequences of the popular imagination? Finally, how can we use such analyses to reflect on historical and contemporary configurations of humanity?
There is no conference fee, and guests are warmly invited. Please register by May 30 by clicking here
Programme (click to open in PDF)
Day 1 – June 8:
13.00-13.30 Registration and tea/coffee
13.30-13.50 Welcome (Jo Shaw, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Edinburgh)
13.50-14.00 Welcome and Introduction (Tineke Broer and Susanne Schregel)
Brain Research and Neurological Potentialities in the 20th Century
14.00-14.45 Vincent Pidoux (STS/Psychology, Lausanne): “Gain Complete Possession of your Brain”: The Vittoz Method as an Everyday Therapy of the Will and an Art of Living (1906–1925)
14.45-15.30 Anna Kathryn Schoefert (History, London): “From Animal to Human Brains” (1963) and Back Again: Everyday Discourses of Instincts in the mid-Twentieth Century Brain
15.30-16.00 Coffee/tea break
Scientists and “Superbrains”: Contested Figures of Open Minds
16.00-16.45 Susanne Schregel (History, Edinburgh/Cologne) „The Intelligent and … the Rest“. Intelligence, Classification and (Un)doing Difference(s) In British Mensa (1946–1985)
16.45-17.30 Jamie Cohen-Cole (History, Berlin/Washington): The Science of Children
20.00 Speaker’s dinner
Day 2 – June 9:
Modes of Thought and of Producing Knowledge
09.00-09.45 Breegje van Eekelen (History, Rotterdam): Mind the Machine: Creative Ideation at Work in America (1938–1968)
09.45-10.30 Kim Ole Henneke and Christian Lassen (Literature/Cultural Studies,
Oldenburg):Beyond Deduction: Anticipation and Representation in Neo-Victorian Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
10.30-11.00 Coffee/tea break
Brain Optimisation and Cognitive Enhancement in the 21st Century
11.00-11.45 Torsten Heinemann (Sociology, Berkeley/Hamburg): “Optimise Your Brain!” – Neuroscience’s Quest for a Better World
11.45-12.30 Brian Bloomfield and Karen Dale (Sociology/STS/Organisation Studies, Lancaster) ): Imaginaries of Cognitive Enhancement
12.30-13.15 Lunch
The Morality of Neuroscience
13.15-14.00 Felicity Callard (Social Sciences/Medical Humanities, Durham/London): Daydreaming and Mindwandering: From the late Nineteenth-Century Psy Disciplines to Twenty-First Century Experiments on Spontaneous Thought
14.00-14.45 Ties van de Werff (Philosophy, Maastricht): Living Well with your Brain: Moral Repertoires of a Plastic Brain
14.45-15.00 Coffee/tea break
15.00-15.45 Steven and Hilary Rose: Can Neuroscience Change our Minds?
15.45-16.15 Closing Discussion
Acknowledgements
This Symposium has been kindly funded by the EURIAS Fellowship programme/Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions – COFUND Programme – FP7 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh Susan Manning Workshops, in memory of IASH’s former Director, Susan Manning.