In this second essay of a two-part series, philosopher Lisa Guenther explores what a meaningful memorial might be for the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario – a former site of prisoner abuse and psychiatric experimentation on vulnerable women.
Posts By: Marcia Holmes
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Memory and Forgetting at Kingston’s Prison for Women
In the first of a two-part series, philosopher Lisa Guenther introduces the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario. As the former home of hundreds of incarcerated Canadian women, it was a site of unethical human experiments and other forms of prisoner abuse.
Edward Hunter and the origins of ‘brainwashing’
Marcia Holmes considers the oft-told story of how Edward Hunter, an American journalist, introduced the term ‘brainwashing’ into English. Was Hunter working for the CIA when he doggedly promoted the threat of ‘brainwashing’ to his Western readers?
Psychic Driving at the Museum of the Normal: ‘Stop Thinking about Death… and Stop Shouting at People’
‘Psychic driving’ is a Cold War-era technology for reprogramming the mind that has a sordid history. David Saunders reports on its continuing appeal.
Reflections on ‘Interrogations: Psy Sciences, Coercion and Confession in a Time of Cold War’
To what extent did the events of the Cold War alter the methods, aims and spaces of interrogation? How might this history intersect with developments in the ‘psy’ sciences? In July 2016, the Hidden Persuaders project hosted a workshop on these questions.
Beyond Brainwashing: Propaganda, Public Health, and Chinese Allegations of Germ Warfare in Manchuria
Mary Augusta Brazelton explains how one of the first scandals involving ‘Communist brainwashing’ also serves as an entry point for understanding how the Chinese Communist Party used biomedical expertise to consolidate its political power at home.
Prof. Tim Shallice on ‘interrogation in depth’ and sensory deprivation
We interviewed cognitive neuropsychologist Tim Shallice about the ‘Five Techniques’ of enhanced interrogation used by British agents in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, and their association with scientific research on sensory deprivation.
Albert Mason on the medicine and magic of hypnotism
Dr. Albert Mason talks to Marcia Holmes about his career in medical hypnotism and psychoanalysis, and describes his experiences as scientific consultant for The Ipcress File film and testing for ESP with Arthur Koestler.
In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind
Beginning Monday May 9 at 14:15, BBC Radio 4 will be re-airing In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind. Executive producer Alan Hall explains the motivation for the series, how it took shape, and why its subject matter continues to be relevant.
Deceptive Subjects: Reading the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System
Hannah Proctor looks afresh at the methodologies of a key Sovietological study, The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, and uncovers the surprising ways that anxieties and assumptions about totalitarianism structured social scientific research.
