Research program on the history of the Max Planck Society

Contact

Phone:
Email:
gmpgoffice@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Prof. Dr. med. Frank W. Stahnisch, M.Sc.

Focus area:
Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences and Neurosciences

Profile

Frank W. Stahnisch is Alberta Medical Foundation/Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine and Health Care at the University of Calgary, Canada. His research interests cover the history of neuroscience, psychiatry, public mental health as well as the emergence of physiological research from the 18th to the 21st centuries. Following his dissertation on the French experimental physiologist François Magendie (1783–1855) at the Freie Universität Berlin 2001, he worked at Humboldt University in Berlin, Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nürnberg, and Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Since 2006 he has been a professor in Canada, first at McGill University in Montreal, Québec, and since then at the University of Calgary, Alberta. In 2010 he joined the Division III of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger) to conduct research on the history of the German morphological neurosciences, 1910–1945. Since 2015 he has been editor of the international Journal of the History of the Neurosciences (Taylor & Francis/Routledge).

For the GMPG program, his research focus is on the MPG regaining a position in globally leading neuroscientific research.

https://hist.ucalgary.ca/profiles/frank-w-stahnisch

Selected Publications

Stahnisch, Frank W.: Medicine, Life and Function. Experimental Strategies and Medical Modernity at the Intersection of Pathology and Physiology. Bochum: Projektverlag 2012.

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Guel Russell (eds.): New Perspectives on Forced Migration in the History of Twentieth-Century Neuroscience. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis 2016.

Stahnisch, Frank W. (ed.): Probing the Limits of Method in the Neurosciences. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press 2016

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Dorothy Potter (eds.): Trading Zones and Boundary Work in the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press 2015.

Hoffmann, Thomas and Frank W. Stahnisch (eds.): Kurt Goldstein – Der Aufbau des Organismus. Einführung in die Biologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erfahrungen am kranken Menschen."Paderborn: Fink 2014.

Monographies

Stahnisch, Frank W.: A New Field in Mind: A History of Interdisciplinarity in Early Brain Science (~ McGill-Queen’s/Associated Medical Services Studies in the History of Medicine, Health, and Society, Vol. 52. Series Editors: Jim T. H. Connor and Erika Dyck). Montreal, PQ, Kingston, ON, London, UK, Chicago, IL: McGill-Queens University Press 2020, 571 pp.

Edited books

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Kurbegovic, E. (eds.): Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics: Historical Perspectives on Alberta and Beyond. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press 2020, 412 pp.

Stahnisch, Frank W. (ed.): Émigré Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and Cognitive Scientists in North America since the Second World War. Berlin, Germany: Publication Series of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science 2018, 241 pp. [Appeared as Preprint No. 490 in the Preprint Series of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (Germany)].

Journal Articles

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Introduction to Émigré Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and Cognitive Scientists in North America since the Second World War.” History of Intellectual Culture 12 (2017–19), pp. 1-14.

Nguyen, A. and Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Rudolf Altschul (1901-1963) – Pioneer in Neurology.” Journal of Neurology 266 (2018), pp. 1874-1876 (Epub. 2019, July 1); DOI: doi: 10.1007/s00415-019-09446-2.

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Kemp C.: “Inter-national Suffering and Local Medical Counselling: Dr. William G. Niederland (1904–1993) and the Psychiatric Contours of ‘Empathy’.” History of Intellectual Culture 12 (2017–19), pp. 1-20.

Nguyen, A. and Stahnisch, Frank W.: “From Interned Refugee to Neuropathologist to Psychiatrist (Neurognostics Answer)”. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 28 (2019), pp. 351-360 (Epub. 2019, April 11); DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2019.1578168.

Stahnisch, Frank W., Holt, Benjamin W., and Pow, Stephen: “Reflections on the Life and Career of Émigré German-Canadian Psychiatrist Sebastian Klaus Littmann (1931-1986).” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 64 (2019), 10 pp. (Epub. 2019, March 25); DOI: 10.1177/0706743719839706.

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Catalyzing Neurophysiology: Jacques Loeb (1859-1924), the Stazione Zoologica di Napoli, and a Growing Network of Brain Scientists, 1900s–1930”. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 13 (2019), pp. 1-14.

Stahnisch, Frank W., Pow, S., and Holt, B. W.: “Gerald M. Edelman (1929-2014) – Pioneer in Neurology.” Journal of Neurology 266 (2018), pp. 1552-1554.

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Biogramm – Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965)”. Internationales Jahrbuch für Philosophische Anthropologie 8 (2019), pp. 331-344.

Nitsch, R. and Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Neuronal Mechanisms Recording the Stream of Consciousness – A Reappraisal of Wilder Penfield’s (1891-1976) Concept of Experiential Phenomena Elicited by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cortex.” Cerebral Cortex 28 (2018), pp. 1-9 (Epub 2018, July 6); DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhy085.

Book Sections

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “The Eugenics Paradox: Core Beliefs of Progressivism versus Relicts of Medical Traditionalism – The Example of Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965).” In: Frank W. Stahnisch and Erna Kurbegovic, Edmonton (eds.): Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics – Historical Studies of Alberta and Beyond. AB: Athabasca University Press 2020, pp. 159-180.

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Kurbegovic, E.: “Introduction”. In: Frank W. Stahnisch and Erna Kurbegovic (eds.): Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics – Historical Studies of Alberta and Beyond. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press 2020, pp. 3-35.

Stahnisch, Frank W. and Kurbegovic, E.: “Conclusion: Lessons from the History of Eugenics”. In: Frank W. Stahnisch and Erna Kurbegovic (eds.): Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics – Historical Studies of Alberta and Beyond. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press 2020, pp. 217-232.

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “‹‹ Des gens comme moi étaient désignés comme des ‘psychiatres vétérinaires’ ›› – Les relations germano-américaines en recherche biomédicale dans la période de l’immédiat après-guerre, 1948-1973.” In: Claude Debru and Mireille Delbraccio (eds.): Neuroscience et Psychiatrie – Progrès scientifiques et réflexions philosophiques. Paris, France: Éditions Hermann 2019, pp. 81-117.

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “Kurt Goldstein oder die kurze Aera des gestalttheoretischen Holismus[~ Kurt Goldstein, or: The Short Moment of Gestalt-Theoretical Holism].“ In: Alexa Geisthoevel and Bettina Hitzer (eds.): Auf der Suche nach einer anderen Medizin. Psychosomatik im 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag 2019, pp. 133-143.

Stahnisch, Frank W.: “The «Brain Gain Thesis» Revisited: German-Speaking Émigré Neuroscientists and Psychiatrists in North America”. In: Patrick Manning and Mat Savelli (eds.): Global Transformations in the Life Sciences, 1945-1980. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press 2018, pp. 128-145.

more publications

Presentations

17/11/2016
Endowed Lecture: Rhea and Louis D. Boshes Lectureship in the History of Neurology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, IL (USA)
'What Were They Really, Americans Asked: Neurologists, Psychologists, or Philosophers?' The Fate of 'Holist Neurology' in Kurt Goldstein, Walther Riese, and Hartwig Kuhlenbeck

08/09/2016
Symposium: "Persecution, Forced Migration and Resettlement of Medical Practitioners, Medical Scientists, and Healthcare Occupations 1930s/40s," Leopoldina – German National Academy of Science, Halle/Saale
Why has the 'Brain Gain Thesis' been so pervasive? Noteworthy Counter-Examples from Refugee Neurologists and Psychiatrists in North America