Cross-Disciplinary Double Book Talk: Institutionalizing Madness: Mental Science and Politics

2025-05-15 - 2025-05-15

Room 502, Zhixing Building, Yangming Campus, NYCU

 

✒️Abstract

This double book talks feature two experts of medical humanities. The books examine madness as a cultural construct and its relation with politics and culture. Harry Wu’s monograph, Mad by the Millions (2021) examines the WHO’s ambitious project, arguing that it was shaped by the postwar faith in technology and expertise and the universalizing vision of a “world psyche.” Wu shows that the WHO’s idealized scientific internationalism laid the foundations for today’s highly metricalized global mental health system. Chien-yn Chi’s Madness, Psychiatry, and Empire in Postcolonial Literature provides a comparatist interrogation of empire through archives of history, science, and literature. It argues that the discourse of psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis has erased the context of power in global histories of empire. This double book talks bring together for the first time a dialogue between a medical humanities scholar and a comparative literature scholar, to show the importance and fruitfulness of cross-disciplinary research on the subjects of mental health and politics.

 

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✒️Event Details

Date & Time: 15/5/2025, 09:00-12:00

Venue: Room 502, Zhixing Building, Yangming Campus, NYCU

Online Access: https://meet.google.com/yra-ofkz-qnp

Organizer: National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS-NYCU)

 

✒️Schedule

📌Title: Cross-Disciplinary Double Book Talk: Institutionalizing Madness: Mental Science and Politics

 

📌Program:

09:00–09:10 Introduction

🗨️Dr. Louis Lo and Professor Wen-Ji Wang

09:10–10:00 Book Talk

🗨️Dr. Harry Yi-Jui Wu

10:00–10:10 Break

10:10–11:00 Book Talk

🗨️Dr. Chienyn Chi

11:00–11:10 Break

11:10–11:40 Respondents (7 min each)

🗨️Dr. Po-Han Lee

🗨️ Professor Wen-Ji Wang

🗨️ Dr. Chienyn Chi

🗨️ Dr. Harry Yi-Jui Wu

11:40–12:00 Questions and Answers

 

📌Participants:

Speakers

－Dr. Harry Yi-Jui Wu（Associate Professor, National Cheng Kung University）

－Dr. Chienyn Chi（Assistant Professor, Bethany College）

Chairs

－Dr. Louis Lo（Associate Professor, Institute of Visual Studies, National Yang Ming Chio Tung University）

－Professor Wen-Ji Wang（Lifetime Distinguished Professor, Institute of Science, Technology and Society, NYCU）

Respondents

－Dr. Po-Han Lee（Associate Professor, Global Health Program, National Taiwan University）

－Professor Wen-Ji Wang（Lifetime Distinguished Professor, Institute of Science, Technology and Society, NYCU）

－Dr. Chienyn Chi（Assistant Professor, Bethany College）

－Dr. Harry Yi-Jui Wu（Associate Professor, National Cheng Kung University）

 

✒️Bios

 

Chienyn Chi is Assistant Professor at Bethany College, USA. She obtained her PhD in Comparative Literature from The University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Madness, Psychiatry, and Empire in Postcolonial Literature (Palgrave, 2024).

 

Po-Han Lee is an Associate Professor in the Global Health Program at National Taiwan University and a Senior Editor at Plain Law Movement. Trained in international law and sociology, he has long focused on issues related to human rights and global governance, engaging with feminist, queer, and critical disability theories to understand social phenomena. He is the co-editor of Towards Gender Equality in Law (Palgrave, 2022) and Plural Feminisms (Bloomsbury, 2023), among other works.

 

Wen-Ji Wang is a Distinguished Professor at the Institute of Science, Technology and Society at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His research delves into topics such as neurasthenia, mental hygiene, and the development of psy disciplines in Republican and Maoist China and post-war Taiwan.

 

Harry Yi-Jui Wu is Associate Professor at the Cross College Elite Program at National Cheng Kung University. He obtained his PhD in Medical History at Oxford University. He was the Director of Medical Humanities Center at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Mad by the Millions: Mental Disorders and the Early Years of the World Health Organization (MIT Press, 2021), among many other journal papers.

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