Sent: Tuesday, 26 April 2005 12:49
PM
To: Wittman, Leonie
Subject: FW: SISC meeting
Hi Leonie,
Could you pass this on to the Indonesian group.
Cheers,
Melissa
Dear Friends
This is to invite you to attend the third SISC seminar of the year to be
held at 5.30 pm on Friday 29 April.
Hans Pols will speak on the subject of "'The Nature of the Native Mind': A
Debate between Colonial Psychiatrists and Indonesian Physicians in 1924".
Speaker: Hans Pols
Hans Pols is lecturer and Director of the Unit for History and Philosophy of
Science at the University
of Sydney. His research
focuses on the history of medicine, psychiatry, and psychology. He is currently
recipient of an ARC fellowship for his research project on War, Trauma and
Rehabilitation: The Army, Psychiatry, and World War II. Over the last few
years, he has investigated the history of medicine, medical education, and
psychiatry in the former Dutch East Indies.
Topic: "'The
Nature of the Native Mind': A Debate between Colonial Psychiatrists and
Indonesian Physicians in 1924".
Abstract: In 1924, two
leading Dutch psychiatrists who worked in the Dutch East
Indies gave talks on their views on the nature of the native or
indigenous mind. Dr. F.H.G. van Loon, who taught psychiatry and neurology at
the medical school (the STOVIA) in Batavia
presented his views to meeting of the Indisch Genootschap in the Hague. Around the
same time, Dr. P.H.M. Travaglino, medical director of the mental hospital near
Lawang, presented his views to the Politiek-Economische
Bond, a conservative political group, in Surabaya. The views presented by these
psychiatrists were unexceptional, as they closely resembled theories in
colonial psychiatry presented elsewhere. The fierce and articulate reaction
they provoked by Indonesian medical students and physicians was, however,
unique.
A small but influential group
of Indonesian intellectuals and physicians, in particular the Society of
Indonesian Physicians, took exception to the views expressed by these
psychiatrists. Reactions to these talks appeared everywhere. In Indonesia, the
journal De Taak published an anonymous article under the title
"Psychiatric fascism", attacking Travaglino. The Journal of Native
Physicians also took exception. The Dutch branch of the Society for Indonesian
Physicians published an extensive rebuttal, elements of which also appeared in
Indonesia Merdeka, the journal of the Perhimpunan Indonesia. This fierce
reaction is indicative of the strong connections between Indonesian physicians
and the Indonesian nationalist movement, which had been growing steadily since
the founding of Budi Utomo in the buildings of the Jakarta Medical
School in 1908.
Time and Date: 5.30 pm
Friday 29 April
Venue: CM05C.02 46g
We look forward to seeing you there.
Steven Drakeley for the SISC Organising Committee
Steven Drakeley PhD
Lecturer Asian History and Politics
BA Honours Coordinator
Office: 61 2 4736 0442
Mobile: 0412
299849
Fax: 61 2 4736 0244
School of Humanities
University of Western Sydney
Building:
CG 19
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith South DC NSW 1797 Australia
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