Histoires de la santé mentale globale

Histories of Global Mental Health 

Conference

 
June 25-26, 2026 | Montreal, Canada

DAY 1
8-9 Coffee & Greetings

9:00 Welcome & Introduction to Histories of Global Mental Health (HGMH)

9:30 KEYNOTE PANEL DISCUSSION: Critical Perspectives on Global Mental Health
Facilitator: Mariano Ruperthuz PhD Psychology (University of Chile) & PhD History (University of Santiago de Chile)
Panelists:

Nafissa Ismail, PhD
Director – LIFE Research Institute, University of Ottawa

 Laurence Kirmayer, MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC
Distinguished James McGill Professor & Director of the Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
Thirusha Naidu, MClin Psych, PhD

CRC Equity and Social Justice in Global Medical Education, University of Ottawa
Harry Yi-Jui Wu, MD, DPhil
Associate Professor of Medical Humanities & Social Medicine, National Cheng Kung University

11:30 Lunch Break
(not included with registration)

13:00 GLOBAL NORTH EXPORTING PSYCHIATRY

Meyerian Mental Hygiene and Its Transnational Migrations North
Alexander Myrick, University of Ottawa (Canada)

Recursive Gatekeeping: Technical Disputes and Professional Quarrels between Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists under the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, 1909-1939
Catriel Fierro, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain)

From Washington to Santiago: The Expansion of the Mental Hygiene Movement
in Latin America (1908-1950)
Mariano Ruperthuz, Buenos Aires & International Psychoanalytic Associations

The Freudian School of Paris and the Making of a New Kind of Psychoanalysis (1964-1980)
Alejandro Dagfal, Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)

15:00 Coffee/Tea & Intellectual Exchange

15:30 GLOBAL SOUTH RESPONDING TO PSYCHIATRY
Social Medicine, Psychiatry, and Activism During the Chilean Road to Socialism, 1970-1973: Historical Notes on Global Mental Health Today
Gabriel Abarca-Brown, University of Copenhagen (Denmark)

Psychiatrists and Psychiatry: The Making of Modern Indian Psychiatry in Independent India
Shilpi Rajpal, University of Copenhagen (Denmark)

Mental Health in Brazil and Global Mental Health
Cristiana Facchinetti, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Brazil)

5-7pm Cinq à Sept (Happy Hour) For Presenters & Organizers
 

DAY 2
8-9 Coffee/Tea & Intellectual Exchange

9:00 RETHINKING EFFECTS OF PSYCHIATRY IN OPPRESSIVE CONTEXTS
African Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return
Nana Osei Quarshie, Yale University (USA)

Healthcare and Indian Indentureship in Trinidad, 1845-1921
Karishma Nanhu, National Trust, Preservation and Research Office (Trinidad and Tobago)

Resilience in the Face of Trauma: a Historical Reappraisal of Mental Health Experiences
in Collapsed Economies and Protracted Wars in the Middle East
Joelle Abi-Rached, American University (Lebanon) and Harvard University (USA)

10:30 Coffee/Tea & Intellectual Exchange

11:00 BIG GLOBAL PICTURES FROM HISTORIANS
Colonialism and Decolonisation in Histories of Global Mental Health
Ana Antic, University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
Beck’s Cognitive Behavior Therapy Globally
Rachael Rosner, Independent Scholar (USA)
Reconsidering the Machine Zone: Technologies of Addiction, Habituation, and Disorientation in Digital Mental Health
Luke Stark, Western University (Canada)

12:30 Lunch Break
(not included with registration) 

14:00 ACTIVATING HISTORY FOR GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH
Improving Theoretical Perspectives in Mental Health and Well-being from Global South Ideas: the Case of Brazilian Teachers
Ana Luiza de França Sá, Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Brasília- IFB (Brasil)
Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile)

Mental Health Practices and Traditional Ecological Knowledges
Wade Pickren, Independent (USA)

15:00 CLOSING REMARKS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 

Conference Co-Sponsors:
Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University
Department of Global & Public Health, McGill University
Social Studies of Medicine Department, McGill University
Jason A. Hannah Chair in History of Medicine, University of Ottawa
 

Conference Co-Chairs:
Rachael Rosner & Susan Lamb
Program Committee:
Rachael Rosner
Suzanne Hollman
Susan Lamb
Wade Pickren
 

Address of Conference (all sessions): 4333 Ch. de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, QC H3T 1E4
Registration: https://www.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/training/2026-special-event (lunch not included)
Contact: Susan Lamb (mobile 001-514-576-3382)

L'administration du vaccin contre la variole dans la Grèce du XIXe siècle

Administrating the Smallpox Vaccine in 19th Century Greece: scientific dimensions, practical issues and popular reactions

Online Lecture

Wednesday, 11 June 2025, 17.30 CEST



Athanasios Barlagiannis, Modern Greek History Research Centre, Academy of Athens

Who was vaccinating in 19 th century Greece? How was the effectiveness of the vaccine ascertained? Were there any popular reactions and what forms did they take? The presentation aims to discuss these questions after tracing the history of the smallpox vaccination in the regions of the Ottoman Empire, which would become Greece in 1832, as well as its relations to inoculation, the previous form of smallpox prevention developed by Greek physicians of the Ottoman Empire. It highlights the
factors that influenced vaccination policies and concludes with the importance of public administration in overcoming obstacles such as popular discontent and fears, scientific uncertainty, challenges from local political opposition and practical issues, such as long-distance transportation of the vaccine.

Short CV:
Athanasios Barlagiannis is a tenure-track researcher at the Modern Greek History Research Centre of the Academy of Athens, specialising in the history of the institutions of the Greek state, 19 th - 20 th centuries. He holds a PhD in Modern Greek History from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris). Since 2016, he has been collaborating with the French research centre TELEMMe (Marseille) on medical and scientific exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 1820s-
1830s. He is a member of the Network for the History of Health (Greece) and treasurer of the Greek Commission of the DHST/IUHPST. He is interested in the history of public health policies, medicine, pharmacology and the Greek state.

Link: https://kit-lecture.zoom-
x.de/j/6884631281?pwd=R3ZwaXVvQWhEaG5MTmlrdytTUXFPUT09


Access without registration - for additional questions, please contact the organizer by
stefan.poser@kit.edu

Doctorats en histoire des sages-femmes en Belgique

PhD positions in the history of midwifery

Call for applications

 Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Antwerp. 

The PhD projects are part of a larger FWO-funded research project 'Midwifery roles and practices in Belgium and the Belgian Congo (1908-1960)', coordinated by Jolien Gijbels and Margot Luyckfasseel. The project as a whole aims to generate fresh insight into the continuing importance of midwives in reproductive care in Belgium and the Belgian Congo between 1908 and 1960. Although women across the globe handled the lion’s share of deliveries and combined different reproductive care roles far into the 20th century, a comprehensive history of their variety of practices and roles still needs to be written. To this end, the PhD researchers will collaborate closely with one another to develop a practice-oriented methodology that prioritizes source material offering insights into midwifery practices and the perspective of midwives, and to examine the mutual influences between Belgium and the Belgian Congo.

The PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel will work on the Belgian case and will be supervised by Jolien Gijbels, Margot Luyckfasseel and Margo De Koster. The PhD researcher at the University of Antwerp will focus on the Belgian Congo and will be supervised by Margot Luyckfasseel, Jolien Gijbels and Amandine Lauro.

 

Important dates:

·                Applications are open until June 1.

·                Interviews will be held on July 7.

·                The planned start date is November 1 or as soon as possible after that date.

 

Please feel free to share the two vacancies with interested candidates in your networks: https://shoc.research.vub.be/en/vacancy-doctoral-researcher-in-the-history-of-midwifery

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vacancies/academic-staff/?q=4373&descr=Doctoral-scholarship-holder-history

Sexe et médecine dans l'Empire ottoman tardif

Anatomy of Empire: Sex and Medicine in the Late Ottoman World 

Seçil Yılmaz 


Éditeur ‏ : ‎ Stanford University Press
Date de publication ‏ : ‎ 2 février 2026 
Édition ‏ : ‎ 1er
Langue ‏ : ‎ Anglais
Longueur d'impression ‏ : ‎ 288 pages 
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1503647770


Syphilis had existed in Ottoman society since the sixteenth century, but it became an alarming public health problem in the nineteenth century. As the epidemic raged with population movements across provincial and imperial borders, Ottoman authorities mobilized medical staff and implemented public hygiene regulations. Seçil Yılmaz unravels how a disease long associated with shame and secrecy became a key site through which Ottomans expanded their hegemony and governance, situating medicine and sex at the center of imperial rule.

Anatomy of Empire reveals the multifaceted implications of biopolitics found in the encounters and negotiations among the diseased, sex workers, working-class men, and physicians within a complex imperial bureaucracy. Medical knowledge and practices became effective tools to govern and discipline a population, particularly as Ottoman physicians formulated vernacular forms of sexology that re-fashioned love, desire, and marriage. As syphilis persisted across the world, Ottomans joined their European counterparts in pursuit of bacteriological discoveries to understand the causes behind the resilience of this silent yet destructive disease. With this book, Yılmaz offers a history of gender, sexuality, and medicine, one set in a consequential geography―in the lands of Ottomans at the verge of their demise―and unearths how truth regimes pertaining to the body and sexuality are indispensable components of modern imperial governance.

Pour une histoire du magnétisme animal au xixe siècle

Pour une histoire du magnétisme animal au xixe siècle. Harmonia Universalis – Du mouvement mesmérien à l’internationale magnétiste

Journée d'études


Jeudi 11 juin 2026, de 9 h à 18 h 30

Salle RdJ 2, centre Malher
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
9 rue Malher, Paris 4e

Journée d’études organisée par David Armando, Jean-Luc Chappey et Claire Gantet, dans le cadre du projet Harmonia Universalis, avec le soutien du Fonds national suisse pour la recherche scientifique


Programme

9 h | Accueil et Introduction
David Armando et Claire Gantet

9 h 15 | Les savants face au magnétisme animal : retour sur l’affaire Pigeaire (1838)
Bruno Belhoste

9 h 45 | Magnétisme et société du spectacle. Autour du parcours de Charles Lafontaine (mais pas que)
Jean-Luc Chappey

10 h 15 | Discussions et Pause

11 h | Jules Lovy (1801-1863) : un polymorphe au carrefour des écoles magnétistes
Anne Jeanson

11 h 30 | Performing Magnetism and the Theatrics of Persuasion : the Case of Prudence Bernard
Kurt Vanhoutte

12 h | Discussions

Pause déjeuner (12 h 30 – 14 h 30)

14 h 30 | Le magnétisme animal à l’épreuve des théories de la volonté au xixe siècle
Alessandra Aloisi

15 h | L’Exposé des cures… (1774-1826) de Simon Mialle et les sociabilités magnétiques
Isabelle Havelange

15 h 30 | Magnétiseurs et illusionnistes : Le somnambulisme magnétique à l’épreuve de la scène au xixe siècle
Thibaut Rioult

16 h | Discussions et Pause

16 h 45 | Table ronde « Nouveaux chantiers »

Autour des travaux de Giulia Abbadessa, de François-Joseph Favey, de Lisa Magnin et d’Olivier Verhaegen

18 h | Conclusions

Repenser l'histoire de la santé mentale depuis les suds

(Re)thinking the history of mental disorder and psychiatry: an approach through the South(s)
 

Medical History, Volume 70 - Special Issue 2 - Avril 2026



Introduction to the special issue: Global South histories of madness – new perspectives on mental troubles and psychiatry from Latin America and Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries
Irène Favier, Romain Tiquet


From the traditional account to an ‘off-centred history’ of the mental hygiene movement: the question of the international (1908–1939)
Hernán Scholten


Mental illness, forced labour, and colonial biopower in Kabba Province of Northern Nigeria, 1900–1947
Unekwu Friday Itodo


In defence of medical judgement: medicalisation strategies in the daily life of the Lima Asylum in the last third of the 19th century
Elias Amaya Nuñez


Sources of madness: investigating the post-colonial history of psychiatry in Niger
Gina Aïtmehdi, Camille Evrard


Disparate emotions? The play of emotions in clinical histories and patients’ letters (Pinel Sanatorium, SP/Brazil – 1929–1944)
Yonissa Marmitt Wadi


‘I cannot say that he is of unsound mind’: the case of Lunatic Richard Lea
Mishka Waza

Michael Servetus et la circulation du sang

Michael Servetus and the Circulation of Blood. The History of a Mistaken Idea


CSMBR Upcoming Lecture



Justo Hernandez

28 April 2026 – 5 PM (CET)



In 1628, Harvey's anatomical demonstration of the circulation of the blood opened a new path in the history of medicine. However, while this demonstration was groundbreaking, the concept of blood circulation had already been explored by numerous thinkers, ranging from Ibn al-Nafis to Realdo Colombo, Michael Servetus and Andrea Cesalpino.

While briefly touching on their individual merits, this lecture will focus specifically on the contribution of Michael Servetus (c. 1509–1553).

A Spanish theologian and physician, now mostly remembered for two things: being executed for anti-Trinitarian and Anabaptist heresy by the Genevans under Calvin, and publishing a work titled Christianismi Restitutio containing a description of blood passing through the lungs.

Published in early 1553, Servetus's Restitutio went unnoticed by medical scholars for well over a hundred years, until it was rediscovered in the eighteenth century by the French encyclopedists Diderot and D'Alembert, who credited Servetus with discovering the circulation of the blood before Harvey.

By examining Servetus's work, I will assert that this attribution was anachronistic and that his idea of circulation sought to resolve a theological rather than an anatomical dilemma: how the soul entered the body.



To register for this event, please click here.

Les histoires du cheveu

Global Histories of Hair, c.1500-2026

 

Call for papers 

 

An international, interdisciplinary conference, organised by the SNSF Starting Grant Team “Matter of Distinction: Early Modern Hair, Race, Trade, and Multispecies History” (Annika Bärwald, Laura Schleiss, Sarah-Maria Schober) at the University of Lucerne on October 8–10, 2026.

 The Deadline for submissions is May 15, 2026.

Hyper-present on almost all heads and bodies, hair is a forceful matter of difference. It signals gender, class, sometimes religion or politics – as well as racialised distinction. As such, hair connects and disconnects humans and other species across the globe and throughout history. The conference “Global Histories of Hair” aims to bring together researchers working on hair as a matter of distinction in the early modern and modern worlds.

 One temporal focus is on the period between approximately 1500 and 1850, encapsulating the European and colonial “age of the wig”. Alongside various types of animal hair reaching their position as “commodities of empire” during this time, human hair was cut, collected and traded over long distances to be used on other people’s heads. In this process, hair and hair practices became an ever-clearer marker of increasingly essentialised and naturalised difference.

 In a second step, the conference addresses the long-lasting hairy heritage of distinction making from 1500 to the present day. This includes the role of hair as human remains in anthropological collections as well as racialised regulations of hair or differences in hair care possibilities.

 Contributions might address, but are not limited to, the following areas and questions:

 Discourse, Knowledge, Practices:

•  What role did hair play in the so-called “contact zone”, where Europeans commented upon and categorised hair and hair practices of others, while also being observed and often humorously commented upon themselves (for example because of their wearing of wigs and powder)?

• What did hair practices in different parts of the world actually look like?
• How were grooming techniques or practices of covering hair described, categorised, and also, in some contexts, enforced?

 Materiality, Trade, Valuation:

•  What role did aspects of hair materiality, such as hair colour, hair texture, hair strength, hair abundance and loss, play in the global sphere? How did the strands of hair materiality, hair knowledge and hair practices entangle or disentangle?

• How was hair collected, traded, valued and used in different regions of the world?
• How did the trade, circulation and usage of hair bring people (and other beings) together and separate them? In what ways did the human hair trade differ from or coalesce with the trade in other fibres?
• How was hair conceptualised and used by people in different regions as a naturecultural material? How were aspects of malleability or essentialisation visualised or hidden, and for what purpose? How did hair contribute to understandings of the increasing separation of nature and culture, and both of these aspects’ respective roles in distinction making?

 Intersectionality:

•  How did ideas about racial, gender-based, religious or class-based hair differences affect people around the globe?

• What forms of expression, or even resistance, did hair care provide to people experiencing inequality and suppression?

 Heritage:

•  How have lasting hairy heritages affected people and their bodies around the globe since 1500?

• What attempts have been made to de-essentialise hair? What are ways of unmaking hair distinctions?

 Presentations are scheduled for 20 minutes, with ample time allocated for discussion. We invite researchers from all relevant fields, such as history, art history, anthropology as well as museum and collection professionals and archivists. Early-career scholars are strongly encouraged to apply. The conference will take place in Lucerne, Switzerland. Travel, accommodation and visa costs will be covered, and organisational assistance will be provided. Hybrid attendance is possible. The conference language is English.

Please submit an abstract (c. 250 words) and a short biography (c. 100 words). The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2026.

Contact: svenja.furger@unilu.ch