A Conference at the National University of Ireland Maynooth
(Funded by the Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine)

Organizers: Dr. Maria Teresa Brancaccio (Amsterdam), Dr. Susan Morrissey (London), Dr. David Lederer (Maynooth)

Though the act of self-killing may be timeless, “suicide” is a thoroughly modern concept that did not exist in any European language prior to the 17th century. The term entered common usage during the Enlightenment, when luminaries first defined it as both a modern pathology and a soluble social ill. “Suicidology,” in turn, was invented in the 19th century, when suicide rates became the leading indicator of moral statistics, employed to judge the general mental and social health of every nation in Europe. As suicidology assumed an influential role in evolving health and social-policy debates, medical researchers, statisticians, and policy-makers explored its causes and meanings in numerous studies that predate Durkheim’s classic study Le Suicide (1897).

This conference explores the transnational genesis of suicidology prior to Durkheim, excavating its emergence as a central feature of intellectual, scientific, and medical debate and national health policy across Europe during the late-18th and 19th centuries. It opens with papers on the etymology of “suicide” as well as policies and debates on public health and punishment, and then goes on to consider the parallel – and intermeshed – development of the two main sciences of suicide: psychiatry and sociology (moral statistics). While many papers are comparative and transnational in approach, others take a regional perspective, with case studies on Scandinavia and Russia. The conference closes with a paper considering the relationship between history and medical practice today.

The conference takes place on December 11-12, 2010 at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth [www.nuim.ie], a charming rural campus 20km west of Dublin. For information on registration, please contact dlederer@nuim.ie. Accommodation is available on campus at a reasonable rate; for more information, click here [http://www.maynoothcampus.com/accommodation.php THE MAKING OF MODERN SUICIDE PROGRAMME (PROVISIONAL) NUI Maynooth 10-12 December 2010

Friday 10 December
7pm: Arrival Dinner at Brady’s Pub

Saturday 11 December

Introductory Remarks 9:15-9:45

Session 1: 9:45-11:15 Andreas Bähr (Freie Universität Berlin), “Between ‘Self-Murder’ and ‘Suicide’: The Modern Etymology of Self-Killing”
Alexander Kästner (Technische Universität Dresden), “Suicides as Accidents: Did Lifesaving Programs Decriminalize Suicides in the Eighteenth Century?”

Break: 11:15-11:30

Session 2: 11:30:-13:00
Julia Schreiner (Oldenbourg Verlag Munich), “Secularization of Meanings? Autopsies as a Punishment for Suicide”
Georgina Laragy, (National University of Ireland Maynooth), “Suicide and Insanity in Victorian Britain and Ireland”

Lunch: 13:00-14.45

Session 3: 14:45-16:15
David Lederer (National University of Ireland Maynooth), "Suicide Statistics as Moral Statistics from André-Michel Guerry to Adolf Wagner"
Evelyne Luef (University of Vienna & Umeå University, Sweden), “Low Morals at a High Latitude? Suicide in 19th-Century Scandinavia”

Break: 16:15-16:30

Session 4: 16:30-18:00 Susan Morrissey (University College London), “Moral Statistics and Social Politics: Suicide in Nineteenth-Century Russia”
Maria Teresa Brancaccio (School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam), “'The Fatal Tendency of Civilized Society': Enrico Morselli's Il Suicidio and the Psychiatric Debate in the 19th Century”

Conference Dinner: Meet at 19:00

Sunday 12 December

Session 5: 9.30-10:15
Ian Marsh (Canterbury Christ Church University), “The Uses of History in the Unmaking of Modern Suicide”

Break: 10:15-10:35

Closing Discussion: 10:35 – 12:00
Comments by Eric Engstrom (Humboldt Universität Berlin)
Open Forum for Discussion