Professor Emeritus
听allan.young [at] mcgill.ca
Allan Young is an anthropologist and the former Marjorie Bronfman Professor in Social Studies in Medicine. His current research focuses on the ethnography of psychiatric science, specifically the valorization of (new) diagnostic and therapeutic technologies and the institutionalization of standards of evidence; and the ethnography of psychogenic trauma as a clinical entity and as a subject of laboratory and epidemiological research.
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Publications
SELECTED BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS
2012. Logic and sensibility in social neuroscience鈥檚 鈥淣ew Unconscious鈥. Logic and Sensibility. Watanabe, Shigeru, ed., pp. 91-106. Tokyo: Keio Univ. Press
2011. Empathic cruelty and the origins of the social brain. In Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience. Suparna Choudhury and Jan Slaby, editors. Pp. 159-176. Oxford: Blackwell.
2011. Empathy, evolution, and human nature. In Empathy: From Bench to Bedside, J. Decety, D. Zahavi, and S. Overgaard, eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
2010. Darwin, la dialectique de cerveau. In Darwin: 200 ans, Alain Prochiantz ed., pp.137-157 Paris: Odilie Jacob.
2010. The history of a virtual epidemic. In Embodiment and the State: Health, Biopolitics and the Intimate Life of State Powers. Giovanni Pizza and Helle Johannessen, eds. AM. Rivista della Societ脿 italiana di antropologia medica n. 27-28:21-36.
2009. Mirror neurons and the rationality problem. In Rational Animals, Irrational Humans, Watanabe, S., Huber, L., Young, A., and Blaidsell, A., editors. Pp. 55-69. Tokyo : Science University Press.
2009. Watanabe, Shigeru, Huber, Ludwig, Young, Allan, and Blaidsell, Aaron, editors. Rational Animals, Irrational Humans. Tokyo : Science University Press.
2009. An Anthropology of Science. In Ideas : On the Nature of Science, Cayley, David, editor. Pp.323-340. Fredericton, NB : Goose Lane Editions.
2008. Kultur im Gerhirn: Empatie, die menschliche Natur und Spiegelneuronen. Wie geht Kultur unter die Haut? Emergente Praxen an der Schnittstelle von Medizin, Lebens- und Socialwissenschaft. J. Niew枚hner, C. Kehl, and
Stefan Beck eds., pp. 31-54. Bielefeld (Germany): Transcript Verlag.
2008. Psychiatric Diagnosis in the Era of the Social Brain: How Evolutionary Narratives May Shape Psychiatry's Future. In: Vera Saller, Mirna W眉rgler and Regula Weiss, eds. Neue Psychiatrische Diagnosen im Spiegel sozialer Ver盲nderungen/New Psychiatric Diagnoses as Reflection of Social Change. pp. 21-37. Zurich: Seismo.
听2007. PTSD of the virtual kind 鈥 trauma and resilience in post 9/11 America. In Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing, and Making Law. Austin Sarat, Nadav Davidovitch, and Michal Alberstein eds., pp. 21-48. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
2007. America鈥檚 transient mental illness: a brief history of the self-traumatized perpetrator. In Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations. Jo茫o Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds., pp. 155-178. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2007. Bruno and the Holy Fool: myth, mimesis, and the transmission of traumatic memories. In Understanding Trauma: Cultural, Psychological and Biological Perspectives, L.J. Kirmayer, R. Lemelson, and M. Barad, eds., pp. 339-362. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.听
2006. The self-traumatized perpetrator : from Vietnam to Abu Ghraib. In Large-Scale Victimisation as a Potential Source of Terrorist Activities: Importance of Regaining Security in Post-Conflict Societies, U. Ewald and K. Turkovi膰, eds., pp. 103-111. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
2006.听 Trauma und Verarbeitung in den USA nach dem 11.听September 2001 Ein anthropologischer Blick auf virtuelle Traumata und Resilienz.听 In Ernestine Wohlfahart and Manfred Zaumseil, eds. Transkulturelle听 Psychiatrie听
Interkulturelle Psychotherapie: Interdisziplin盲ire Theorie und Praxis, pp. 391-410. Heidelberg听: Springer Medizin Verlag.2006. La psychiatrie 脿 la recherche d鈥檜n esprit post-g茅nomique. Sciences Sociales et Sant茅 24听: 117-46.听
2004. When traumatic memory was a problem: On the antecedents of PTSD. In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Issues and Controversies, edited by G. Rosen, pp. 127-146. London: Wiley.
2004. How narratives work in psychiatric science: An example from the biological psychiatry of PTSD. In Narrative Research in Health and Illness, edited by B. Hurwitz, T. Greenhalgh and V. Skultans, pp. 382-396. Oxford: Blackwell.
2002. Notes on the evolution of evolutionary psychiatry. In New Horizons in Medical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie, edited by M. Nichter and M. Lock, pp. 221-238. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
2001. PTSD a culture bound sydrome?: A cultural critique of a diagnostic concept and its export. In Culture op de vlucht: over de transculturele psychiatrische zorg aan asielzoekers en vluchtingen, edited by H. Bot, M. Braakman, L. Preijde and W. Wassink, pp. 77-84. Tilburg (Netherlands): Janssen-Cilag.
2001. Introduction to PTSD no Iyro-jinruigaku (The Medical Anthropology of PTSD, translated by Hisai Nakai, Yasuyoshi Otsuki, Akitomo Shimoji, Tsuyoshi Tatsumi, and Akane Naito. Tokyo: Misuzo Shobo. (Japanese
edition of The Harmony of Illusions, with a new introduction by the author and a preface by Hisao Nakai)
2001. Nos n茅vroses traumatiques ont-elles un avenir? In La maladie mentale en mutations: Psychiatrie et soci茅t茅, edited by Alain Ehrenberg and Anne Lovell, pp. 101-126. Paris: Editions Odilie Jacob听
1995 The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press.
This book is simultaneously a history of traumatic memory, based on contemporary reports, and an ethnographic account, based on the author's field research in a Veterans Administration psychiatric unit specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of the memory's characteristic malady, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The discovery of traumatic memory in the nineteenth century challenged ideas about the moral autonomy of the self - specifically the mind's capacity to know and attempt to put into action its beliefs, desires, and intentions. Traumatic memory and the psychophysiological mechanisms on which it is based created a new language of self-deception ("repression" and "dissociation" now made it possible for the mind to keep secrets from itself) and justified the emergence of a new class of medical and moral authorities.
Most of what has been written about traumatic memory and PTSD until now has described these developments from the perspective of clinicians, researchers, and patients who assume that (1) the memory and its disorder are timeless realities, dating back to the dawn of recorded history, and (2) the standards and formal procedures practised by psychiatric science (e.g. psychometrics, randomized and control group experimental research) are external to the formation of these realities. This book's thesis is that (1) traumatic memory and psychiatric science are both historical products, and (2) PTSD is a techno-phenomenon, glued together by the nosological practices, clinical and research technologies, and narratives through which it is identified, treated and represented, and by the social interests, institutions, and moral arguments through which the required clinical and scientific resources are mobilized.
1992 Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge, with Charles Leslie, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.
SELECTED ARTICLES
2012. The social brain and the myth of empathy. Science in Context 25: 329-352.
2011. Self, brain, microbe, and the vanishing commissar. Science, Technology, and Human Values 36: 638-661
2011. Vier Versionen des Holocaust-Traumas. Tel Aviver Jahrbuch f眉r deutsche Gerschichte. Pp. 185-206.
2008. A time to change our minds: anthropology and psychiatry in the 21st century. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 32: 298-300.
2007. 9/11: In the wake of the terrorist attacks. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 195: 1030-1032.
2007. Troublesome memories: reflections on the future. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 21: 230-232. Co-author:Naomi Breslau
2006. Bruno et le fou sacr茅听: Mythe,mimesis et la transmission des m茅moires traumatiques, L鈥橢volution psychiatrique 7听: 485-504.听
听2006. La psychiatrie 脿 la recherche d鈥檜n esprit post-g茅nomique. Sciences Sociales et Sant茅 24 : 117-46
2006. Remembering the evolutionary Freud. Science in Context.19:175-189
2006. Traumatisme 脿 distance, r茅silience h茅ro茂que et guerre conte le terrorisme. Revue Fran莽aise de Psychosomatique 28 :39-62
2002. The self-traumatized perpetrator as a 鈥渢ransient mental illness.鈥 Evolution Psychiatrique 67: 26-50. Published simultaneously in French as: L鈥檃uto-victimization de l鈥檃ggresseur: un eph茅m猫re paradigme de maladie mentale. L鈥橢volution psychiatrique 67: 1-25.
2001. Our traumatic neurosis and its brain. Science in Context 14: 661-683.
1996 Bodily memory and traumatic memory. In M. Lambeck, & P. Antze (Eds.), Tense past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory (pp. 89-102). London: Routledge
1996 Suffering and the origins of traumatic memory, in Deadalus, 125:245-260.
1994 Symptom attribution in cultural perspective, with L. Kirmayer and J. Robins, in Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 39:585-595.
1993 A Description of How Ideology Shapes Knowledge of a Mental Disorder (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), in Knowledge, Power and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life, Shirley Lindenbaum and Maragaret Lock, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 108-128.
1992 Reconstructing rational minds: Psychiatry and morality in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder, in The Social Construction of Illness, J. Lachmund and G. Stollberg, eds. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 115-124.
SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS AND ORGANIZED SESSIONS
2012. Invited presentation: 鈥淏eyond the horizon: what we don鈥檛 know that we don鈥檛 know (yet) about human nature鈥. Keynote paper at a workshop titled At the Crossroad of Medical and Cultural Anthropology, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. (29 August)
2012. Invited presentation: 鈥淧TSD in a new light: the heterogeneity thesis鈥.听 Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. (30 June)
2012. Invited presentation: 鈥淔eral children, human nature, and the autism spectrum disorders鈥. Dept. of Philosophy of Science, Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan. (26 June)
2012. Keynote presentation: 鈥淪tress, cultural psychiatry, and resilience in the 21st century鈥. Annual Meetings of the Japanese Society for Transcultural Psychiatry, Fukuoda, Japan. (23 June)
2012. Invited presentation:听 鈥淭he heterogeneity thesis: a novel perspective on PTSD and Holocaust trauma鈥. Symposium title: Bridging the Divide in Holocaust and Genocide Studies: Towards a Cross-Cultural Interdisciplinary Dialog. University of Haifa (Israel). (13 June)
2012. Keynote presentation: 鈥淔eral children, human nature, and the autism spectrum disorders鈥. Conference title: The Rise of Child Science and Psy-expertise. Centre for Research in International Medicial Anthropology, Brunel University (UK). (30 May)
2012. Keynote presentation: 鈥淪tress, traumatic stress, and the culture of resilience鈥. Conference title: The Culture of Stress. University of Heidelberg (Germany). (23 May)
2012. Keynote presentation: 鈥淓mpathy and pathology in the social brain: From the discovery of mirror neurons to the commodification of oxytocin鈥. Conferenece title: The Mutual Challenges of the Neurosciences and Public Health, European Neuroscience and Society Network, King鈥檚 College and Goodenough College, London. (UK). (26 April)
2012. Keynote presentation: 鈥淎 Short History of the Stress Response in the 21st Century.鈥 Conference title: The Stress of Life: Gender, Emotions and Health After the Second World War, The Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter (UK). (3 April)
2011. Invited presentation: 鈥淒oes the brain have a mind f its own?鈥 Conference title: Neuro Reality Check: Scrutinizing the 鈥楴euro-turn鈥 in the Humanities and Natural Sciences. Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. (3 December)
2011. 鈥淥xytocin and the end of history.鈥 Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Americam Anthropological Association, Montreal (18 November)
2011. Invited presentation: 鈥淭he twilight of human nature?鈥 Conference title: Toward an Integration of Logic and Sensibility: From Neuroscience to Philosophy. Keio University, Tokyo (13 September)
2011. 鈥淥ut of the Shadows: Schadenfreude and Human Nature鈥. Keynote speaker. Conference title: Mastering the Emotions: Control, Contagion and Chaos, 1800 to the Present Day. Queen Mary University of London. (16 June)
2011. 鈥淓mpathy, Mental Time Travel, and the New Unconscious鈥. Invited talk, Seminar convened by Alexandre Koyr茅 Centre and the Andre Centre de Recherche M茅decine, Sciences, Sant茅, Sant茅 Mentale, Soci茅t茅 Universit茅 Paris Descartes. (25 February)
2010. 鈥淪chadenfreude Rediscovered: Oxytocin, Economic Games, and the Social Brain鈥. Invited lecture, Neuroscience Fellows Seminar. Max Planck Institute 鈥 Leipzig (Germany). (28 February)
2010. 鈥淭rauma, Mental Time Travel and the New Unconscious鈥. Invited lecture: Social Neuroscience Seminar, Humboldt University (Berlin). (2 March)
2010. 鈥淗ow Stress Became a Trauma Disorder鈥. Invited presentation. Conference title: Stress, Trauma, and Adaptation in the Twentieth Century, organized by the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, US National Institutes of Health and the Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter, Bethesda, Maryland. (11 November)
2010 鈥淧osttraumatic Stress Disorder through the Lens of Social Neuroscience鈥. . Invited talk, to Postdoctoral Fellows Seminar, 听Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Ageing Research. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. (21 October)
听2010鈥Trauma, the stressor criterion and the culture of psychiatry鈥, a paper presented at an international conference, Rethinking Cultural Competence from International Perspectives, Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, 29 April to 1 May 2010, Montreal, QC. (1 May)
2010. 鈥淭he social history of the posttraumatic syndromes, 1980 to 2010,鈥 a research seminar presentation at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST), the University of Paris I (Sorbonne). (2 June)
2010. 鈥淥n the history, epistemology, heterogeneity of the posttraumatic syndromes鈥, at an international workshop on Making of Psychiatric Epidemiology: History and Epistemology of an International Discipline, 3-5 June 2010, Centre for Psychotropics and Mental Health Research, at the University of Paris Descartes. (5 June)
2009. The History of the Evolution of the Social Brain. Keynote presentation at the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal (12 June).
2009. A Social Anthropology Perspective on Microbial Societies, a talk presented to the Department of Anthropology, University of Aarhus (Denmark). (3 June)
2009. Empathy, Cruelty and the Origin of the Social Brain, a talk presented at the Gnosis Centre, University of Aarhus (Denmark). (2 June)
2009. Conference title: Social Practices of In/Visibilisation, the Danish Research School in Anthropology and Ethnography (University of Copenhagen). My paper: Six Kinds of Invisibility: Imag(in)ing a Mind inside the Brain. (29 May)
2009. Does PTSD鈥檚 鈥楳emory Logic鈥 have a Future? A talk presented to the Research and Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (Copenhagen). (27 May)
2009. Conference title: Neurocultures, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin). My talk: Psychopathy and the Social Brain (11 February)
2009. Conference title: Critical Neuroscience, University of California at Los Angeles and the Foundation for Psychocultural Research. My paper: Psychopatholgy in the Social Brain (28 January)
2008. Empathic Cruelty and the Evolution of Human Nature. University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology (27 October)
2008. Stress and the heterostatic body, Exeter University, Department of the History of Medicine. (11 November)
2008. Enduring Misconceptions Concerning Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Dartmouth University, Department of Psychiatry. (26 September)
2008. Conference title: Globalization of Psychiatry and the Languages of Suffering, Trauma, Violence and Resilience. CESAME, University of Paris 5. My Paper: 鈥淗istory in Trauma鈥 (5 June).
2008. Empathic Cruelty and the Evolution of the Social Brain. 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales (Paris). (6 June)
2008. Conference title: Medical Anthropology and Therapeutic Discourse. Van Leer Institute (Jerusalem). My paper: 鈥淭herapeutic Discourse and the Science of Empathy鈥 (29 June).
2008. Conference title: Rational Animals, Irrational Humans. Keio University (Tokyo). My paper: 鈥淓mpathy: an Evolutionary Riddle鈥 (9 February).
2007. Pathologies of the Social Brain. Kyoto University (Tokyo, public lecture) (24 July)
2007. Changing Perspectives on Mind, Brain, and Empathy: Implications for Understanding the Intersection of Reason and Emotion. Keio University (Tokyo, public lecture) (2 August)
2007. Conference title: The Holocaust as the Paradigm of Psychic Trauma in the 20th Century. Tel Aviv University, Israel. My paper: 鈥淗istorical transformations in the concepts of 鈥渢rauma survivor鈥 and 鈥淗olocaust trauma鈥 (24 January)
2006. Workshop title: How Does Culture Get Under the Skin? Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. My presentation: 鈥淭he social worlds inside the body鈥 (16 December)
2006. Conference title: Embodiment and the State. University of South Denmark, Middelfart Conference Centre, Denmark. My paper: 鈥淭he body of the future prepares for the War on Terrorism鈥 (28 October)
2006. Workshop title: Workshop on the History of Stress. Exeter University (UK). My presentation: 鈥淥verview of biological theories of stress鈥 (13 September)
2006. Conference title: Healing the War: Psychosocial Perspectives and Experiences in Conflict-Torn Areas. International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome. My paper: 鈥淚nventing post-traumatic stress disorder鈥 (21 June)
2006. Conference title: Le Cerveau Social. Centre de Recherches Psychotropes, CNRS 鈥 Universit茅 Ren茅 Descartes Paris 5. My paper: 鈥淧athologies of the social brain鈥 (2 June)
2005. 鈥淭he Future of Psychiatric Genetics: From Genetic Blueprints to Extended Endophenotypes,鈥 conference paper, Meetings of the Society for Social Studies of Science and the European Association for the Social Studies of Science and Technology; Paris听 (August 4).
2005. 鈥淓mpathy, Dissimulation, Neuroimaging and the Evolution of the Human Mind,鈥 invited lecture, Heidelberg University, Department of Ethnography and South Asian Studies; Heidelberg, Germany (May 15).
2005. 鈥淧sychiatry鈥檚 Search for a Postgenomic Mind,鈥 invited lecture, Michigan State University, Department of Epidemiology; Lansing Michigan (February 10).
2004. 鈥淔orgetting the Evolutionary Freud,鈥 conference paper,听 Conference: Forgetting Freud? How to write the history of psychoanalysis today. Sigmund-Freud-Museum; Vienna, Austria (December 10).
2004. 鈥淔rom Clinical Phenotype to Neo-Lamarckian Endophenotype,鈥 conference paper, Symposium: Die Politik der Emotionen: Zur Wechselwirkung zwischen neuen psychiatrischen rkl盲rungsmodellen und sozialen Ver盲nderungen, sponsored by the Interdisziplin盲re Kommission f眉r Medizinethnologie (Switzerland); Zurich, Switzerland (November 4).
2004. 鈥淒oes Evolutionary Psychiatry Have a Future?鈥, a keynote presentation at the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. Montreal (October 4).听
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