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SUMMARY:Impossible objects? Towards a history of modern sleep and dream re
 search - Andreas Mayer (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)
DTSTART:20120216T163000Z
DTEND:20120216T180000Z
UID:TALK35056@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karin Ekholm
DESCRIPTION:In my talk\, I will address rise of the scientific study of sl
 eeping and dreaming in Europe and the US after 1850. Whereas dreams have a
 lways been a troubling phenomenon for Western rationality\, attempts at th
 e systematic observation and control of the dreaming process only emerged 
 in the 19th century. Within a new scientific culture of objectivity\, drea
 ms posed a challenge: since they appear in the sleeper's mind as fleeting 
 phenomena and can only be known after awakening\, they could hardly be con
 sidered as observable objects\; and more disturbingly\, their irregular\, 
 immoral\, and irrational aspects threatened the unity of the observer. Thi
 s twofold uncertainty gave rise to a regime of observation in which dreams
  and similar mental phenomena were objectified\, a process in which the us
 e of new visual media was of key importance. By reconstructing the genealo
 gies of the practices by which dreams were objectified\, my aim is not onl
 y to bring to the fore the specificities of the cross-disciplinary field o
 f sleep and dream research\, but also to offer historical and epistemologi
 cal elucidations of the current ambitions voiced by the exponents of new s
 ubdisciplines (most notably cognitive or neuroscientific approaches to psy
 choanalysis).
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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