(co-sponsored by UCLA, McGill University, and Neuroscience in Context)

UCLA
January 28-29, 2009 (workshop) | January 30, 2009 (conference)

In January 2009, the FPR and McGill University co-hosted a two-day multidisciplinary workshop organized by members of the interdisciplinary Critical Neuroscience project. Participants included neuroscientist Steven Rose, cultural psychiatrist Laurence Kirmayer, philosopher Evan Thompson, and historian Cornelius Bork.

The purpose of the critical neuroscience workshop was to consider non-reductionistic ways of studying the role of the brain in cognition and psychiatric theories that can integrate insights from anthropology, history of science, transcultural psychiatry, philosophy, and sociology. The goal of critical neuroscience (“critical” denotes reflexivity) is to develop a more integrative approach to understanding brain and behavior “that attends to the context and experience of the person, as well as the processes, dispositions, and plasticity of the brain.”

A public conference was held on the last day of the 3-day program, featuring talks by Steven Rose (“Why the Mind is Wider than the Brain”), Allan Young (“The Social Brain, Empathy, and Sociopathy”), and Laurence Kirmayer (“Critical Neuroscience and Cultural Psychiatry”), followed by a panel discussion, “Critical Neuroscience, Neurophenomenology, and the Future of Psychiatry.”