Dear colleagues and fellow researchers,
for all who are interested in finding new sources (or publication opportunities) in the history of psychology we would like to recommend to you the European Yearbook of the History of Psychology.
The EYHP is a peer-reviewed international journal devoted to the history of psychology, and especially to the interconnections between historiographic survey and problems of epistemology.
Registration for the Oulu conference is now opened!
The website for the registration is now online! Informations regarding the conference fee, time schedules, travel informations and the conference program can be found here! If you want to give a talk, please note that applications must be received by March 31st 2014.
We look forward to receive your registrations and meeting you in Oulu!
Book award for ESHHS president!
Petteri Pietikäinen, current president of the ESHHS, received the prestigious Finnish national Kanava Award for the best non-fiction book of 2013 for his recent publication “Hulluuden historia” (“History of Madness”).
The awarding committee noted that the book tells an impressive story of how madness has been an intrinsic part of human experience and social organization. It suggests a new perspective on the role of madness in history, one expressed through the variety of ways in which madness has been explained and treated over time.
ESHHS 2014 conference website online!
The official website of the next conference of the ESHHS, taking place in Oulu, Finland from 22-25 July 2014, is now online. All important informations, deadlines and schedules regarding the conference can be found here.
ESHHS 2014: Call for Papers online!
The European Society for the History of Human Sciences (ESHHS) invites submissions to its annual conference to be held at University of Oulu, Finland, 22 July to 25 July 2014.
Papers, posters, symposia, or workshops may deal with any aspect of the history of the behavioral, human, and social sciences. The programme committee particularly encourages submissions that cover the whole range of the human sciences, including the history of psychology, psychiatry and medicine, but also history of sociology, anthropology, criminology, philology and historiography. We also welcome submissions that deal with theoretical or methodological issues.
Please see the ESHHS Call for Papers Oulu 2014 for details!
From Germany to Finland!
Thanks to our host Armin Stock, head of the Adolf-Würth Center for the History of Psychology, we spend four wonderful days with inspiring presentations and debates in Würzburg and enjoyed the city’s wonderful atmosphere and gastronomy.
Those who could not attend the conference can find some impressions of the opening ceremony, the welcome reception as well as the conference dinner here. We are happy to announce that the next conference will be held in Oulu, Finland and will be hosted by the society’s current president Petteri Pietikainen. Further informations about the next conference will be coming soon!
Preliminary programme & reminder to pay you dues
Thanks to the hard work of local organizer prof. dr. Armin Stock and our programme committee, the preliminary programme for our 2013 conference in Würzburg is now available. You can find it through this link to the conference website.
Also, allow us to gently remind you to pay your annual dues. Each contribution is appreciated and helps us to financially support those who need it to come to our conference. Thank you for contributing!
Würzburg 2013: Conference site
As you might have read in our last mailing, Armin Stock has launched a website for our upcoming conference in Würzburg. You’ll find information there on the conference location and the program, on accomodation and how to get there. There is also a very helpful document with information on interesting sites, museums, guided tours around Würzburg and so on.
The conferencesite contains a web form which makes registration for the conference very easy. The conference site and the registration form can be found through this link: ESHHS Conference 2013
ESHHS member Roger Smith’s new books
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Roger Smith, Between Mind and Nature: A History of Psychology (London: Reaktion Books, Feb. 2013; distributed in US by University of Chicago Press)
This is a new and up-to-date history of psychology with a historian of science’s perspective. It is a critical history in the sense that it looks at psychology ‘from the outside’: it understands psychological beliefs and activity historically and does not take a psychological way of thought for granted. The book is for anyone interested in human nature and in the relations of the sciences and the humanities. I also hope students and psychologists of all kinds will find stimulus here and, though it is not a text-book, its coverage is unusually full. I write distinctively about the variety of psychological activity and the intellectual and social worlds of which it has been part. The history of psychology covers a field without clear boundaries, and I try to do justice to this. It is possible, though, to read chapters separately. The book has an origin in an earlier and larger book,The Fontana (or Norton) History of the Human Sciences, published some fifteen years ago and out of print. This new book is different, with a sharper focus on psychology and much new material. In places, I have rewritten and brought up to date earlier material where that best suited my purpose; and I have also rewritten material taken from a version of theFontana/Norton history translated and published in Russia.
Roger Smith, Free Will and the Human Sciences in Britain, 1870-1910 (London: Pickering & Chatto, Jan. 2013)
From the late nineteenth century onwards religion gave way to science as the dominant force in society. This led to a questioning of the principle of free will _ if the workings of the human mind could be reduced to purely physiological explanations, then what place was there for human agency and self-improvement? Smith takes an in-depth look at the problem of free will through the prism of different disciplines. Physiology, psychology, philosophy, evolutionary theory, ethics, history and sociology all played a part in the debates that took place. His subtly nuanced navigation through these arguments has much to contribute both to our understanding of Victorian and Edwardian science and culture, as well having relevance to current debates on the role of genes in determining behaviour.
Contents
1. Belief in Free Will: What was at Stake? 2. Physiology and Mind in the 1870s 3. Shaping the Science of Psychology 4. Volition and Mental Activity 5. Causation 6.The Moral Agent 7. History and Society 8. The Legacy
Perspectives on culture: society, politics and the individual
Two interesting books have recently been published by Carl Ratner, director of the Institute for Cultural Research and Education. The first, Macro Cultural Psychology, a Political Philosophy of Mind, explains how macro cultural factors are the cornerstones of society and how they form the origins and characteristics of psychological phenomena. In doing so it articulates a systematic political philosophy of mind and utilizes this to examine current issues and approaches to psychology.
In Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era, Ratner argues for a societal paradigm shift and details how such a transformation might be accomplished. Taking the evolutionary long view, he demonstrates how cooperative principles can make a social system not just more efficient and less wasteful of time and resources, but also more democratic, empowering, and fulfilling for everyone involved.
Carl Ratner, Macro Cultural Psychology, a Political Philosophy of Mind. Oxford University Press, 2011. 544 pp. ISBN 978-0-195-37354-7
Carl Ratner, Cooperation, Community, and Co-Ops in a Global Era. Springer, 2012. 245 pp. ISBN 978-1-461-45824-1