Bøker i Histoire (Col)-serien

In the past, our ideas of psychiatric hospitals and their history have been shaped by objects like straitjackets, cribs, and binding belts. These powerful objects were often used as a synonym for psychiatry and the way psychiatric patients were treated, yet very little is known about the agency of these objects and their appropriation by staff and patients. By focusing on material cultures, this book offers a new perspective on the history of psychiatry: it enables a narrative in which practicing psychiatry is part of a complex entanglement in which power is constantly negotiated. Scholars from different academic disciplines show how this material-based approach opens up new perspectives on the agency and imagination of men and women inside psychiatry.

The beginning of the 20th century saw a reinterpretation of the concept of the accident. While accidents had traditionally been considered as inevitable, modern societies debated about their management and prevention. The emergence of the modern state led to an unprecedented capability to deal with accidents. The state formed institutions, practices and legal concepts that considerably changed everyday life.The contributions in this volume explore social, cultural, political, administrative and medical responses to accidents in modern states. The case studies include British, French, German, Italian, Chinese and Chilean experiences and thus provide different national perspectives on the governance of risks.

When talking about monuments, size undeniably matters - or does it?But how else can we measure monumentality?Bringing together researchers from various fields such as archaeology, museology, history, sociology, Mesoamerican studies, and art history, this book discusses terminological and methodological approaches in both theoretical contributions and various case studies. While focusing on architectural aspects, this volume also discusses the social meaning of monuments, the role of forced and free labour, as well as textual monumentality. The result is a modern interdisciplinary take on an important concept which is notoriously difficult to define.