Historical-Social Context Psychology

Catalog description

This course explores modern psychology’s historical, philosophical and social contexts. Influenced by contemporary theories from histories and philosophies of science, this course on Psychology’s history eschews the common, “presentist” narrative of a science. Instead, students will learn and discuss psychology’s contingent manifestations in time and space, its varied, contingent, Eurocentric, and often-conflicting social practices, and how these have affected and been affected by structures of history, culture, scientific discourse, and human interests. The course also covers the history of major figures and movements in psychology since the nineteenth century, leading up to contemporary phenomena such as feminist, ethnic-racial diversity, and indigenous psychologies.