Raum R. 201
Alfred Freeborn is a Research Scholar in Department II and a former member of the Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences Research Group at the MPIWG. Alfred currently investigates changes in how psychiatric research has been evaluated as part of the postwar globalization of biomedicine. Alfred studied for a BA in History at the University of Cambridge, receiving the Cambridge Historical Society Prize for his dissertation on early modern utopian writing. In 2015 he was awarded an Isaac Newton Trust scholarship to complete an MPhil in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science where he worked on diverse areas of research from Enlightenment cartography to twentieth-century social theory.
In 2016 Alfred moved to Berlin to pursue a doctorate at the Chair for the History of Science at the Humboldt University. His doctorate combined recently declassified archival sources from the UK Medical Research Council with oral historical interviews to critically examine the rise of biological psychiatry in postwar Britain. In 2020 Alfred was a visiting scholar at the German Historical Institute in London and a visiting lecturer in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, where he taught courses on the history of the human sciences. He has published on the historiography of the neurosciences and the philosophy of biomarker research in contemporary biomedicine. Currently he is involved in several collaborative projects in the history of biomedicine as well as completing his first monograph Biomedical Madness: Schizophrenia and the Making of Biological Psychiatry
Projekte
Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice
Commoning Biomedicine: Networking Decentralized Collections of Oral Histories
History of Statistical Thinking and Practice in Medicine
Seeking Global Validation: Scales of Validity in Psychiatric and Biomedical Research
The History of Lucid Dreaming Research: An Interdisciplinary Oral History
Selected Publications
Freeborn, Alfred (2024). “Review of: Lea, Andrew S.: Digitizing Diagnosis: Medicine, Minds, and Machines in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2023.” European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 81 (1): 174–176. https://doi.org/10.1163/26667711-20240006.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2023). “Review of: Noortje Jacobs: Ethics by Committee: A History of Reasoning Together about Medicine, Science, Society, and the State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 2022.” Isis 114 (3): 679–680. https://doi.org/10.1086/725923.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2023). What Can the History of Schizophrenia Teach Us About “Revolutionary” Breakthroughs in Science and Medicine? (film). Latest Thinking. https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101083.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2022). “Review of: Horwitz, Allan V.: DSM: A History of Psychiatry’s Bible. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2021.” The FASEB Journal 36 (4): 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.202200270.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2021). “Review of: Nicolas Langlitz: Chimpanzee Culture Wars: Rethinking Human Nature Alongside Japanese, European, and American Cultural Primatologists. Princeton: University Press, 2020.” History of the Human Sciences, June 1, 2021. https://www.histhum.com/review-chimpanzee-culture-wars/.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2020). “Review of: Jürgen Renn, The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene. Princeton: University Press, 2020.” History of the Human Sciences, October 19, 2020. https://www.histhum.com/rethinking-science-for-the-anthropocene/.
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Keuck, Lara K. and Alfred Freeborn (2020). “The Limits of Biomarkers. Contemporary Re-Phrasings of Canguilhem.” In Vital Norms: Canguilhem’s “The Normal and the Pathological” in the Twenty-First Century, ed. P.-O. Méthot, 346–367. Paris: Hermann.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2019). “The History of the Brain and Mind Sciences.” History of the Human Sciences 32 (3): 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695118815554.
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Upcoming Events
Past Events
Workshop
Globalizing Schizophrenia: The History and Legacy of the WHO Studies of Schizophrenia
MORESeminar
In Search of Biomedical Validity: Towards a Cross-Disciplinary History of Validation Practices
MOREAuthors' Workshop
Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice
MOREPresentation
In Search of Biomedical Validity: Towards a Cross-Disciplinary History of Validation Practices
MOREWorkshop
A Little Bit Different from Oral History? The Historiographic Realm of Research Interviews in History of Science and Medicine
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: NHS Voices of Covid-19
MOREColloquium
Between Transcultural Disease and International Diagnostic Concept: The International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (1965-1973)
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: Connecting 3 Worlds
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: Science History Institute
MOREWorkshop
Challenges to Translating Validity in Psychiatric Research
MOREPresentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities
Centre Marc Bloch
Speaker Series in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA
European Association for the History of Medicine and Health Biennal Conference, Oslo
Universität Erfurt
Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, University of Toronto Symposium, together with Simon Brausch, Sam Ducourant, Ariane Hanemaayer, Lara Keuck, Michele Luchetti, and Hanna Worliczek
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Evidenzpraktiken Workshop. Villa Vigoni, Italy
7. Offenes Forum Geschichte der Lebenswissenschaften (FoGeL), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
British Society for the History of Science Annual Conference
German Historical Institute Stipendiatenkolloquium
American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Conference