A New Field in Mind: A History of Interdisciplinarity in the Early Brain Sciences

by Frank W. Stahnisch

Overview

In recent decades, developments in research technologies and therapeutic advances have generated immense public recognition for neuroscience. However, its origins as a field, often linked to partnerships and projects at various brain-focused research centres in the United States during the 1960s, can be traced much further back in time. In A New Field in Mind Frank Stahnisch documents and analyzes the antecedents of the modern neurosciences as an interdisciplinary field. Although postwar American research centres, such as Francis O. Schmitt's Neuroscience Research Program at MIT, brought the modern field to prominence, Stahnisch reveals the pioneering collaborations in the early brain sciences at centres in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in the first half of the twentieth century. One of these, Heinrich Obersteiner's institute in Vienna, began its work in the 1880s. Through case studies and collective biographies, Stahnisch investigates the evolving relationships between disciplines - anatomy, neurology, psychiatry, physiology, serology, and neurosurgery - which created new epistemological and social contexts for brain research. He also shows how changing political conditions in Central Europe affected the development of the neurosciences, ultimately leading to the expulsion of many physicians and researchers under the Nazi regime and their migration to North America. An in-depth and innovative study, A New Field in Mind tracks the emergence and evolution of neuroscientific research from the late nineteenth century to the postwar period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773559325
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	03/19/2020
Series:	McGill-Queen's Associated Medical Services Studies in the History of Medicine, Health, and Society , #52
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Frank W. Stahnisch is professor of history and holds the Alberta Medical Foundation / Hannah Professorship in the History of Medicine and Health Care at the University of Calgary.

Table of Contents

Illustrations xi

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xxi

Abbreviations xxvii

1 Introduction 3

2 The Disciplinary Makeup of Clinical and Basic Research in Imperial Germany: The Case Examples of Strasburg and Leipzig 43

3 Shortfalls of Individualized Research, the Emergence of Clinical Neurology, and the Demands of Modern Life, 1910S to 1930S: Frankfurt am Main and Berlin 70

4 War, Trauma, Regeneration: External Influences and Cultural Nervousness Considered in Neuromorphological Research 131

5 The Later Weimar Period: Political Conflicts, the Rise of Eugenic Concepts, and International Influences on Interdisciplinary Work in German Neuroscience 176

6 The Machtergreifung of the National Socialists and Its Effects on the German-Speaking Neurosciences: Marginalization - Oppression - Forced Migration 201

7 On Cultural and Professional Contexts of Theory-Change in the Neurosciences Due to the Forced Migration Wave since 1933: Germany/Austria - United States/Canada 237

8 "They Called Me an American Monkey Psychiatrist": Reanimating German-American Biomedical Research Relations in the Early Postwar Period 301

9 Conclusion: The Development of Interdisciplinary Work in the Neurosciences: Subject Constraints, Social Necessities, and the Development of Research Networks 331

Appendix: Graphic Representations 349

Notes 363

Bibliography 459

Index 525

Editorial Reviews

Stahnisch’s outstanding historiography of the precursors of modern neuroscience is highly recommended not only for historians of science and, more specifically, those concerned with neuroscience but also for a broad audience interested in medicine, cultural history, emigration history, and constellation studies as well as philosophy and the development of theory and circulation of knowledge.” University of Toronto Quarterly


"A New Field of Mind is a rich and multifaceted case study that will have value to a wide audience of scholars interested in the themes of psychoanalysis, diaspora, institution building, and the creation of new fields through interdisciplinarity." Marjorie Lorch, University of London


"Stahnisch's examination of the neuroscientists' migration is part of a larger scholarship focus of scientific diaspora. Some might have felt like strangers in paradise, but many looked back to their homelands and fostered new networks. Why does rebuilding of transatlantic exchange relationships sound so anachronistic today? One other contribution of Stanisch's outstanding piece of historical scholarship is that he places the formative years of the neurosciences in a European context but warns of academic isolationism." The Lancet


"Brain research as a synthesis of neurological, psychiatric, psychoanalytical, endocrinological, physiological, anatomical and surgical efforts is considered as a North American discipline, discovered, shaped and advocated for since the 1960s. However, Frank W. Stahnisch makes it clear in his book that not only the individual sub-disciplines experienced their roots and heyday in Europe, but that interdisciplinary brain science itself was conceived in Europe and especially in German clinics and research institutes. [...] This is the great merit of this book, which aims to make today's doctors and researchers aware of their own history." Sudhoffs Archiv: Journal for the History of Science and Medicine


"[A] fascinating revisionary historical account of the development of modern neuroscience ... This well-researched book provides many thought-provoking insights and gives intriguing examples of the changes in neurology and psychiatry, as they took place in the early Post-War Period and the changing research cultures in the lab and at the bedside. It emphasizes that the pioneers of modern neuroscience in fact had 'a new field in mind'." Neuroforum

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