Faculty Member, Science Studies Unit
National University of Singapore, Department of History, & STS Research Cluster
Senior Lecturer, UoE
Tembusu College, NUS
About
First and foremost, I believe in multiplicity. When being an academic, I am an historian of psychiatry, sexology, sexuality and the body. To my mind, history is a literary genre - not a description of past truth (I am with Lytton Strachey on that one). History is where we explore contemporary issues - be they understanding the production of knowledge, or a genealogy of the present. I study it because I like reading about peculiar things and because I like writing (although most of my output is on obscure web pages under various other persona, and not in academic circles, once my REF quota is complete - reaching out beyond academic circles is to me of the utmost importance - although I almost never do this under my real name; I am hardly the first to write in order to have no face).
Within the history of psychiatry, my main interests are the history of forensic psychiatry, the construction of culture-bound syndromes, and the construction of sexological categories. All of these fields are tied together by focusing on the use of case histories as a form of psychiatric reasoning. The focal point for all of this is the field (in the sense articulated by Foucalut in the Archaeology of Knowledge). For understanding the history of the body, I am an ardent follower of the performative theory of social institutions, deriving from the Strong Programme in the Sociology of Scientifc Knowledge (the so-called Edinburgh School - although I bet David and Barry would raise an eyebrow to see me writing about culturally-situated bodily practices such as genital piercings rather than the Milikan oil-drop experiments - but the beauty (and real achievement) of SSK is that it is an adaptable explanatory framework, as shown by the work of Irene Rafanell or Pablo Schyfter). This theoretical approach meshes well with my other main interest - historical epistemology (Bachelard-Canguilhem-Foucault-Hacking-Davidson). In essence, I need to think about things historically in order for them to make sense - and this includes my (our) own historical outputs, which are just as subject to the specific gammars of our fields. This interest in psychiatry overlaps greatly with my interest in the history of sexuality, which has mostly adressed the sexual body in the 20thC - with a conception of the body as an artificial kind (and I have explored this in terms of the 20thC history of pubic hair, sexual piercings, and female ejaculation in one chapter - I will develop this work more in the future, including a paper on the g-spot as an artificial kind with Irene Rafanell). This sideline - which I actually find more compelling the more I learn - was an accident - I was roped into two edited collections, both of which I think are rather good but neither of which I would have instigated myself.
Topics that currently interest me are the insanity defence and criminal responsibility (especially the trial of Ronald True in 1922, although I am also interested in this problem in colonial East Africa); the construction of sexological categories (especially sadism & masochism and homosexuality - have written a lot about Havelock Ellis in particular regard to these problems, and have recently written about much more contemporary practices such as homosexual masochistic practices as forms of resistance to psychiatric knowledge - due out in a book edited by Kate Fisher and Sarah Toulalan); koro (the culture-bound syndrome concerned with penis shrinking anxieties) and the psychiatric construction of culture-bound syndromes more generally (especially the ethnocentrism of modern western psychiatry - why is that Westerners don't have a culture in most psychiatric discourses?); the sexual body as a social institution; and critiquing ANT approaches to the production of scientific discourses from an historicist, Foucaultien/SSK perspective. I am increasingly interested in body modifications (tattoos, piercings, etc) in terms of the body being an artificial kind, also informed by SSK/Foucault (although I am rather partial to them aesthetically as well - and have quite a few to go with my various piercings. If I wasn't so hairy, I'd probably have more). Of course, I only like tattoos if they are done well, and not simply bad tribal flash pointed to on the wall of some dodgy establishment and etched into the arm of an unthinking punter). Modern european tattooing has revived this genre in the most spectacular ways! See the Buena Vista Tattoo Club for the state of the art: http://www.buenavistatattooclub.de/
In these academic interests I am close to - but respectfully critical of - the work of Ian Hacking and Arnold Davidson, neither of whom are historicist enough - although both of whom are at the paramout of conceptual philosophical history). I am also intrigued by Annemarie Mol's conception of multiplicity - but given my criticisms of ANT, believe that this approach would be drastically improved by a recognition of the diachronic aspects of multiplicity, rather then the ethnographic snapshot and the limited sociological framework she employs (it is always the works that frustrate me the most that I return to over and over again...).
There is more to me than these academic pursuits. Outside the sheltered workshop of academia, I am many things. I am bisexual. I am Australian, and until recently lived in Scotland, which meant that I missed the sun, and now burn when I am in it (a workplace hazard?). Fortunately, I was distracted from this bleak Scottish outlook by an underwater water welder each morning, and by a 6yo wannabe skateboarder from time to time. They both follow me wherever I am. Amongst my other dodgy pursuits (not all of them able to be discussed here), I love going clubbing - I am especially obsessed with minimal techno (German, French, and Detroit, as a basic rule), and would donate a kidney just to see Stewart Walker play a long live set (whose kidney, though, I am not sure, although occasional victims spring to mind for this worthy cause). I spent one of the happiest moments of my life seeing Jeff Mills at the Arches in Glasgow last year (I am convinced he believes in aliens and is using clubbers as a means of communicating with them through the concentration of energy). I love contemporary European tattooing (I have spent more time looking at the work of Sophie Haza than at the Titians hanging in the National Gallery of Scotland - which is not to say that I can't describe Diana's face fairly accurately). Ingmar Bergman is my favourite director and Antoine d'Agata my favourite photographer. There is little I cannot tell you about what the twenty-three little men in the boats in Hokusai's 'Great Wave of Kanagawa' are going through. I am firmly committed to the idea that cricket is a colonial game - and so take immense pleasure on seeing anyone beat England in a test match (it's not who wins; it is how much England loses by that is important - although when push comes to shove, I back India, despite their dismal performance against my home country of late). I also cook pretty well, love travelling (preferably with my French überchick), and love teaching (which is just as well, as the only other job I have done is paying my way through university cutting up dead chickens in a factory in rural Australia). My academic ambition is to win award for my teaching (I have been nominated five times in four years), but it seems that academic administration is valued far more in this age of bureaucracy, and so it sucks up more of my time than I feel I can give to the students whom I used to believe were the focal point of educational institutions. I am completely convinced that if I lost my iPhone, the world world cease to exist - permanent access to the internet is only just less important than oxygen. I also believe that the world is a better place when the sun is out and the temperature is above 30. And last of all, I am trying to learn French - but there is only so much one can do with a 39yo brain. Reading Têtu seems to help, at least.
And given the above, it should be patently obvious that I don't take myself all that seriously. I don't expect you to do so either ;-] My work, however, is very serious. Fortunately I believe in the death of the author, which is not to say I am in a hurry...
Contact Information
| Address: | Tembusu College, |
