Material Cultures of Psychiatry / Monika Ankele, Benoît Majerus

• HerausgeberIn: Ankele, Monika; Majerus, Benoît
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Histoire
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (416 p.)

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 were often used as a synonym for psychiatry and the way psychiatric patients were treated, yet very little is known about the agency of these objects and their appropriation by staff and patients. By focusing on material cultures, this book offers a new perspective on the history of psychiatry: it enables a narrative in which practicing psychiatry is part of a complex entanglement in which power is constantly negotiated. Scholars from different academic disciplines show how this material-based approach opens up new perspectives on the agency and imagination of men and women inside psychiatry.

O-Ton: »Krankenbetten und Dauerbäder« - Zeitsprung-Extra mit Monika Ankele über Psychiatriegeschichte am 13.10.2020. Besprochen in: https://histoiresante.blogspot.com, 21.10.2020 https://historypsychiatry.com, 21.10.2020

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENT -- Aktion #1246a -- Material Cultures of Psychiatry -- Pat. No. 25682 -- I. Scenography and Space -- Oil on Canvas: An Isolation Cell Constructed by the k.k. Hofoperntheater for the Asylum -- Silent “Night of Madness”? Light, Voice, Sounds, and Space in the Illenau Asylum in Baden between 1842 and 1910 -- “Le cabanon du fou”: Uses of the Shed As a Confinement Device for the Insane in French Rural Households in the 19th Century -- “Amongst the Most Important of the Agencies”: Materializing “Nature” at the American Lunatic Asylum -- Have a Seat!: Approaching the Object of the Chair at the Site of Psychiatry -- II. Transforming Practices -- Have a Seat -- The Fabric of Seclusion: Textiles As Media of (Spatial) Interaction in Isolation Cells of Mental Hospitals -- Theories of the “Savage”: The Material Varek (Seagrass) As a Bearer of Meaning in Psychiatry around 1900 -- Untitled -- The Uses and Misuses of Television in Long-Stay Psychiatric and “Mental Handicap” Wards, 1950s–1980s -- Buttons and Stimuli: The Material Basis of Electroconvulsive Therapy As a Place of Historical Change -- III. Agents of Healing -- Materiality -- “The Magical Device”: Temple Grandin’s Hug Machine -- The Piano in the Asylum and the Insanity of the Composer: Two Variations on a Theme (with Interlude) -- The Effectiveness of Symbols: Psychogeographic Explorations of the Body -- IV. Bodies, Senses, and the Self -- Loss of Identity -- Lives in Storage: Clothes and Other Personal Effects As a Way of Recovering Patients’ Histories in a Psychiatric Hospital -- A Corridor That Moves: Corporeal Encounters with Materiality in a Mental Hospital -- Psychographics and the Materials of Time Measurement in Modern French Psychiatry -- V. Teaching Projects -- Artistic Research on Things in/of Psychiatry: An Interdisciplinary Teaching Project -- Cover, Rip Up, Unwrap: Scenes with Material from the Mental Asylum. A Documentary Theater Based on Medical Records -- Notes on Contributors