Sabine Arnaud from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin will visit IIT to give a lecture entitled “A Disease Best Described by Its Etymology?: Hysteria in France at the Turn of the 19th Century,” at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 in the Hermann Hall Alumni Lounge.

Arnaud’s latest book, On Hysteria: The Invention of a Medical Category between 1670 and 1820, is being translated into English by University of Chicago Press in 2015. It describes how hysteria originated, not as a gendered disease, but as one relating to social status. Arnaud then discusses how and why the transformation occurred around the time of the French Revolution that relegated it more specifically to women.

This event is sponsored by the Benjamin Franklin Project at IIT in partnership with the Jack Miller Center and with generous support from the John Templeton Foundation.

See the attached flyer for more information.