Ellen Dwyer
- Professor, Department of History
- Professor, Criminal Justice
- Director, Collins Living-Learning Center
Education
- B.A. at College of New Rochelle, 1967
- M. Phil. at Yale University, 1970
- Ph.D. at Yale University, 1977
Contact Information
| Ballantine Hall, Rm. 819 |
| Sycamore Hall, Rm. 312 |
| Collins Living-Learning Center Annex |
| (812) 855-2287 (History) |
| (812) 855-1271 (Criminal Justice) |
| (812) 855-8905 (Collins) |
| www.indiana.edu/~medhist/dwyer.htm |
Background
My research and teaching interests move in three related directions. Trained in nineteenth-century American cultural and social history, I teach graduate courses in that area. Post-Ph.D., I moved into the social history of medicine, focusing in particular on the history of psychiatry and neurology in the United States. Initially, I continued to explore these areas in the context of nineteenth-century America but my research has moved into the twentieth century. From time to time, I explore these issues in undergraduate seminars and graduate readings courses on the history of psychiatry. Most recently, I have turned to looking at the ways in which race and gender shaped military neuropsychiatry during World War II, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of African-American soldiers and doctors. Finally, I have a long-standing interest in the history of social control in the United States, with a particular focus on prisons and asylums. Within the Department of Criminal Justice, I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in this area. I also regularly offer courses that explore the relationship between mental health care and criminal justice in the contemporary United States. These draw on literature from multiple fields: public health, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and law.
Selected Awards
- Sonnedecker Grant, History of Pharmacy Archives (2004)
- Fulbright-Hayes Scholar (Spring, 1999)
- Indiana University Summer Faculty Fellowships (1989 and 2004)
- Core Faculty Member, RISP-NIH Grant (1994-1998)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Science and Technology Grant (1989-1994)
- Epilepsy Foundation of America Grant (1989-1992)
- American Philosophical Society Research Grant (1988) [declined]
- National Endowment for the Humanities/American Association of State and Local History Grant (1988-1989)
Research Interests
- Psychiatry and neurology in the U.S., 1830-present
- History of gender in the U.S.
- Medicine and law in the U.S., 1830-present
Courses Recently Taught
- Seminar in nineteenth-century American history
- The Mad and the Bad
- Medicine and law in the U.S., 1830-present
Publication Highlights
Books
Homes for the Mad: Life inside Two Nineteenth-Century Lunatic Asylums. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987.
Articles
"The State and the Multiply-Disadvantages: The Case of Craig Colony," in Steven Noll and James W. Trent, eds., Mental Retardation in America: A Historical Reader (New York: NYU Press, 2004), pp. 258-80.
"Toward New Narratives of Twentieth-Century Medicine." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 74, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 786-93.
"Stories of Epilepsy, 1880-1930," in Charles Rosenberg and Janet Golden, eds., Framing Disease: Studies in Cultural History, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 248-70. Reprinted in Hospital Practice, 27, no. 9A (September 4, 1992): 65-108.
"Stigma and Epilepsy," Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Ser. 5, Vol. 13, no. 4 (1991): pp. 387-410.
