Talks
2024
“Are Psychedelics Being Medicalized, and If So, How?” Workshop “Psychedethical: Framing the future of psychedelic and psychoactive substances from the Humanities, Bioethics and the Social Sciences.” Shanghai University, December 2024.
“Experiments in Medicalization: Psychedelic Therapy in Switzerland and Australia.” Workshop “Psychedelics in Context.” Harvard University, November 2024.
"Should STS Make Psychedelic Research More Responsible?" HOPE Summit on Psychedelic Ethics. John Hopkins University, Washington (DC), August 2024.
"Psychedelic Humanities and Moral Psychopharmacology." Monash University, Melbourne, July 2024.“The
"Ethics of Informed Consent: Suggestibility, Efficacy, and Morality.” ICPR panel, Haarlem, June 2024.
“Psychedelic medicalization: What can a square peg teach a round hole?” ICPR panel, Haarlem, June 2024.
“Psychedelics Between Sciences and Humanities.” Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, Johns Hopkins University, March 2024.
2023
Roundtable "E c o l o g i z i n g Therapeutic Practices", AAA Conference, Toronto, November 2023.
"Should STS Make Psychedelic Research More Responsible?" (with Torsten Voigt), 4S Conference, Honolulu, November 2023.
"The psychedelic renaissance and media studies" (with Torsten Voigt), 4S Conference, Honolulu, November 2023.
"Psychedelics as charismatogens." Synchronicity, New York, October 2023.
"Charismatogens." Inaugural HOPE Summit on Psychedelic Ethics. Oxford University, August 2023.
"Psychedelics and the Crisis of Psychopharmacology." Charité Hospital, Berlin, July 2023.
“Psychedelics and the Crisis of Psychiatric Medicine.” Hong Kong University, May 2023.
"Opening the Blackbox of Clinical Psychedelic Therapies" (with Alex Gearin). Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, Hong Kong University 2023.
"Injecting Reflective Freedom into Moral Psychopharmacology." Workshop What Good Are the Psychedelic Humanities? The New School, April 2023.
“The Psychedelic Renaissance: High Hopes and Rising Criticisms” (with Hamilton Morris), SXSW, Austin (TX), March 2023.
“What (Good) Are Psychedelic Humanities?” Course Critical Perspectives on Knowledge Production in Psychedelic Science, Chacruna Institute, February 2023.
2022
"Psychedelic Innovations." Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience, University of Heidelberg, retreat at Kloster Schöntal, July 2022.
"Psychedelic morals are more complicated than you think." Webinar with Juuso Kähönen at the Finnish Association for Psychedelic Research, June 2022.
"Psychedelic Innovations and the Crisis of Psychopharmacology." University of Zurich. May 2022.
2021
"Mind the Gap: Should We Collapse Psychedelic Science and Psychedelic Humanities into a Third Culture?" Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London. May 2021.
"The Extinction of Chimpanzee Cultures: A Plea for Fatalism." Panel Anthropology of Endings, Association of Social Anthropologists Conference, St. Andrews/virtual, April 2021.
“Making Up for a Missed Encounter? Why Cultural Primatologists and Cultural Anthropologists Didn't Get to Talk.” Primate Conversations Seminar, Oxford University. February 2021.
2020
“Political Psychopharmacology.” Virtual symposium Psychedelics and Culture. Graduate Program in Science, Technology & Society, Bar Ilan University, November 2020.
"The Paradox of Psychedelic Humanities." Keynote at Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research Amsterdam/virtual, September 2020.
“The Paradoxical Place of Psychedelic Humanities in Consciousness Culture.” Virtual symposium Progress in "Bewusstseinskultur." Mind Foundation, Berlin/virtual, September 2020.
2019
“The Extinction of Chimpanzee Cultures: A Plea for Fatalism.” Annual Conference of the American Anthropological Association, Vancouver, November 2019.
“Feldphilosophie im Affenlabor.” Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft, Köln, September 2019.
“Organized Polemics.” Colloquium at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, May 2019.
“Zeit des Erkennens, Zeit des Schließens.” Workshop with Julian Rohrhuber at Institut für Musik und Medien, Robert Schuman Hochschule Düsseldorf, May 2019.
“Fieldwork in Philosophy.” Conference Midst Anthropology’s Problems. Berkeley, April 2019.
2018
“Cultural Primatology in the Anthropocene,” Conference Le Primate Comme Sujet, Collège de France, Paris, 22 May 2018.
“Fieldwork in Perennial and Neurophilosophy.” Conference How Psychotropic Substances Transformed the World: Harvesting, Producing and Consuming LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline. Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Berne, April 2018.
“Rightist Psychedelia.” Panel discussion The Altered Mind: Psychedelics and the Ethics of Mind Enhancement. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 2018.
“Zeit, Streit und Forschung. Warum gibt es moderne aber keine zeitgenössischen Wissenschaften – und was sagt uns das über die Kunst?” Two-day workshop and invited talk at Institut für Musik und Medien, Robert Schuman Hochschule Düsseldorf, Germany, January 2018.
2017
“Science as Cosmic Play, Humanities as Perennial Polemics.” Workshop Disenchantment’s Enchantments: A Century of Science as a Vocation, Harvard University, 16/17 November 2017.
"Psychedelik als epistemische und ästhetische Herausforderung.” Two-day workshop and invited talk at Institut für Musik und Medien, Robert Schuman Hochschule Düsseldorf, Germany, July 2017.
“From Human Nature to Chimpanzee Cultures and Back Again.” Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, June 2017.
”Chimpanzee Culture Wars: How Cultural and Evolutionary Anthropologists Battled over American Sociobiology, Japanese Primatology, and a Multiculturalism Beyond the Human.” Keynote at Trial Research Conference, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, May 2017.
2016
”World-making in a Japanese Chimpanzee Laboratory.” Workshop Evidentiary Practices: Testing, Measuring and Accounting in Global Infrastructures, Universität Halle, 21-22 April 2016.
“Drugged and Dreaming Brains: Two Opaque Models to Explore the Neurobiological Basis of Mental Phenomena.” Workshop Modeling the Vital Brain: The Making and Use of Models in Neuroscience. Freie Universität Berlin, 7-8 April 2016.
“Synthetic Primatology: Human and Chimpanzee Doings in a Japanese Laboratory and the African Field.” Washington University, St. Louis, 29 March 2016
Interdiscplinary Ethnography Workshop with Eben Kirksey and Etienne Benson, Princeton, 16 February 2016.
2015
“Vatted Dreams: Neurophilosophy and the Politics of Phenomenal Internalism.” Talk in seminar series Neuroscience and History, Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, 14 October 2015.
“‘How Do Chimpanzees Perceive this World?’ Japanese Primatology after Imanishi.” Talk at conference “"Sorting Brains Out: Tasks, Tests, and Trials in the Neuro- and Mind Sciences, 1980-2015."" Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 18–19 September.
“Is There a Place for Psychedelics in Philosophy? Anthropological Observations.” University of Kyoto, 7 August 2015.
Artmap workshop “Measures and Devices,” Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 9 January 2015.
2014
Lecture “A Troubled Interdisciplinarian’s Fieldwork in Neurophilosophy” and workshop (with Fernando Vidal) “Interdisciplinarity and Its Discontents” at the symposium Mind the Brain! Neuroscience in Society, Berlin School for Mind and Brain, November 2014.
“The Observation of What?” Lecture series Ethnography and Social Theory, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, October 2014.
Workshop “Comedy of Things.” Copenhagen, August 2014.
“Mainstreaming Psychedelia.” Conversation with Emily Segal from K-Hole. Swiss Institute, New York, August 2014. [Article] [Video]
2013
"The Dream Catcher: Philosophy and Science Studies Meet in a Sleep Lab." Seminar Series "Entanglements of Instruments and Media in Investigating Organic Worlds." Institute for Science and Technology Studies, York University, Toronto, October 2013.
"What do we want the history of neuroscience to do?" Discussion with Mark Churchland, Darcy Kelley, Stefanos Geroulanos. Seminar Series Neuroscience and History, Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, September 2013.
"Homo academicus Among Other Cooperative Primates." Brown Bag lecture, Department of Sociology, The New School for Social Research, April 2013.
"Untold Pleasures." Conference "Failures." The New School for Social Research, April 2013.
Panel discussion on "Bioethics and the Materiality of Medicine." Conference "The Politics of Materiality." The New School for Social Research, April 2013
Panel discussion on "Helping or Harming? Social Research and Intervention." Conference "Social Research in a Transforming World: Transatlantic Conversations." The New School for Social Research, New York, March 2013.
2012
"The Dream Catcher: Neuroscientists, Philosophers, and Out-of-brain Experiences" on executive panel "The Refusal of Relation: Describing the Science and Politics of Isolation." AAA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 2012.
"The Biopolitics of Psychedelia: From Counterculture to Neuroscientific Biedermeier?" Conference "The Biopolitical Condition." The New School for Social Research, November 2012.
"Out of the Armchair: On a Problem Shared by Anthropologists of Science and Philosophers of Mind." Workshop "Fieldwork in Philosophy." School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, October 2012.
"Mystic Materialism: Contemporary Hallucinogen Research Between Science and Spirituality." Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy (NY), April 2012.
Discussion with Ken Johnson about his book "Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art." CUNY Graduate Center, New York, March 2012. [Video]
2011
"Ecopharmacology: Animal Research beyond Anthropomorphism." Conference "When the Subject Speaks." Wesleyan University, Middletown (CT), December 2011.
"Psychedelic Renaissance: Beyond the Crisis of the Sixties." Panel discussion "The Stakes of Crisis." AAA Annual Meeting, Montréal, November 2011.
"Neuroperennialism: Psychedelic Research Between Science and Religion." Workshop "Knowledge and Belief in Medicine." Zurich, 9 November 2011.
"Lullaby for a Mouse: Anthropological Observations of an Animal Model of Psychosis." Horizons conference. New York, 14-16 October.
Panel discussion on "Science" with Lawrence Hirschfeld and Rayna Rapp. Conference "On Interdiscipline." New School for Social Research, New York, April 2011.
"The Revival of Psychedelic Research." History of Science Program, Princeton University, April 2011.
"Psychedelic Ontologies: Contemporary Hallucinogen Research Between Naturalism and Mysticism." Department of Anthropology / Institute for the History of Production of Knowledge, New York University, February 2011.
"Neuropsychedelia: Drug Research Between Science and Religion." Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, January 2011.
2010
"Reflections on Fieldwork in the Neurophilosophy of Dreaming." Workshop "Dreaming and Its Relation to Natural and Pathological Alterations of Consciousness. University of Turku, Finland, June 2010.
Panel discussion "Thinking about the emergent and the everyday." Conference "Committing Anthropology." New School for Social Research, New York, April 2010.
"Neurophilosophy Between Scientific Knowledge and Ignorance." Symposium "Neuroscience and Human Nature." The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, London, February 2010.
2009
Public conversation about drugs and emotions (with Omer Krieger). Theater event “Am Schauplatz der Intimität. Eine Phantasmagorie.“ Hebbel Theater, Berlin, December 2009.
“Political Neurotheology: Drug Mysticism in and after the Counterculture.“ Conference “Vital Politics III – The Life Sciences in an Age of Biological Control.“ London School of Economics, London, September 2009.
“The PPI Network: Translating Drug Mysticism into Model Psychosis Research.“ XXIII International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, August 2009.
“Politische Neurotheologie.“ Lecture series “Aktuelle Probleme der Medizinethik.“ Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, June 2009.
“Anthropological Difference in Neuropsychopharmacology.“ Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt University, Berlin, May 2009.
“Animalizing Humans – Culturalizing Psychopharmacology. Anthropological Reflections on the Hallucinogen Model of Psychosis.“ Anthropology Department, New School for Social Research, New York, March 2009.
“Dreaming in/of a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain.“ Workshop “Neurocultures.“ Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, February 2009.
2008
“Introspection and Personal Knowledge in the Neurosciences. On the Laboratory Life of Hallucinogen Research Today.“ Conference “New Frontiers of Subjectification. Immanence-Transcendence, Natural-Artificial, Mind-Body, Normal-Pathological." Instituto Metodista Bennett, Rio de Janeiro, November 2008. [Portuguese translation]
“Dreaming in/of a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain.“ Institute for Social Medicine, State University of Rio de Janeiro, November 2008.
“Animalization of the Human. Anthropological Reflection on an Animal Model of Psychosis.“ Institute of Psychiatry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, November 2008.
“The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the ‘Decade of the Brain‘.“ Postgraduate Program in History of Science and Public Health, The Oswaldo Cruz Institute (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janeiro, November 2008.
“Neuropsychedelia.“ Institute for Social Medicine, State University of Rio de Janeiro, November 2008.
“Übersetzungen und Korrelationen. Innere Bilder und Neuroimaging in der Halluzinogenforschung.“ Conference “Visualisierung als Übersetzung.“ Einstein Forum, Potsdam, October 2008. [MP3]
“John Lilly‘s Isolation Tank Experiments.“ Exhibition “Vague Ideas about Life.“ Alte Markthalle, Berne, September 2008.
“Dangerous Creativity. New Drugs and New Risks in the Designer-drug Underground.” Workshop “Copyright's Alternatives: Alternative Economies of Creativity in Theory and Practice.” Queen’s University, Kingston, August 2008.
“Neuroscientists, Philosophers of Mind, and the Dreaming Brain.” 25th Anniversary Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreaming, Montréal, July 2008.
“The Persistence of the Subjective in Cognitive Neuroscience. Observations of Contemporary Hallucinogen Research.” Workshop “Our Brains, Our Selves?” ESNS Network, Harvard University, May 2008.
“The Office of Experiments’ Truth Serum Threat.” Joint presentation with Neal White at conference sk-interfaces, FACT, Liverpool, February 2008.
“Pharmacovigilance and Post-Black Market Surveillance.” Conference ScienceFutures, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, February 2008.
2007
“Hallucinogens, Neuroimaging, and Visionary Art,” eikones-Colloqium, ETH Zentrum RAC, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, April 2007.
“Pharmacovigilance and Post-Black Market Surveillance.” Workshop Precarious Substances. Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, March 2007.
2006
“The Global Assemblage of Contemporary Hallucinogen Research.” Conference Vital Politics II: Health, Medicine and Bioeconomics into the 21st century, London School of Economics and Political Science, September 2006.
“Schizophrenic Rats? Anthropological Implications of an Animal Model of Psychosis.” EASST Conference Reviewing Humanness: Bodies, Technologies and Spaces, University of Lausanne, August 2006.
“Tripping in Solitude. The Self-Experiments of John Lilly and Honza Samotar.” Workshop on Introspective Self-Rapports: Shaping Ethical and Aesthetic Concepts 1850-2006, Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, May 2006.
“The Case of Switzerland: LSD Research and Therapy.” International Symposium LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug, Convention Center Basel, Switzerland, January 2006.
2005
“Wie schweizerisch ist die Schweizer Halluzinogenforschung?” Kölner Ethnologisches Kolloquium, Department of Ethnology, University of Cologne, December 2005.
“Die historische Epistemologie der Modellpsychosen.” Journal Club, Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, November 2005.
"Ceci n'est pas une psychose. Toward a Historical Epistemology of Model Psychosis." XIV Studientag Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, October 2005.
1999
“Modernistische Historiographie? Überlegungen zur Erzählung als geschichtswissenschaftlicher Methode“, Annual Meeting of Driburger Kreis, Leipzig, September 1999.