Date:
Location:
CRITICAL HEALTH HUMANITIES
SPEAKER: Joelle Abi-Rached, Radcliffe Institute
I propose a critical analysis of psychological resilience, which has become the mantra of our epoch, by historizing it and problematizing it. I will contend that it is neither a stable nor a timeless concept, but rather a concept that emerged in the late twentieth century for reasons that I will explore in the lecture. I will contend that resilience has supplanted stoicism as a philosophy of life or a therapy of the soul. I will also argue that it is no longer enough to refine the concept, what “critical resilience” adherents purport to do. Instead, what we need is a serious reappraisal of the normalization of violence.
About the Speaker
Joelle M. Abi-Rached is a historian of medicine who originally trained as a medical doctor. For the past two years she served as a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard. Her monograph ʿAṣfūriyyeh: A History of Madness, Modernity, and War in the Middle East (MIT Press, 2020) was recognized by the American Association for the History of Medicine “for outstanding work in 20th century history of medicine.” She also coauthored Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind (Princeton University Press, 2013).
At Radcliffe, Abi-Rached is working on her next book project, tentatively titled “The Resilient Society: A History of Violence, Colonialism, and Our Psychiatric Present.” Drawing on psychiatric, medical, and scientific literatures as well as on conversations with various experts, the book proposes a new global history of trauma from the 19th century to the present.
Abi-Rached’s research has appeared in such high-profile journals as Nature Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine and in publications such as Aeon, the Boston Review, and Le Monde. She has written reports for think tanks and the World Health Organization. She is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including from Columbia University’s Society of Fellows. She was recently voted a favorite professor by the Harvard College Class of 2023. Abi-Rached earned an MD from the American University of Beirut, an MSc in philosophy and public policy from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in history of science from Harvard.