Raum 108
Alfred Freeborn is a Research Scholar in the Department on Knowledge Systems and Collective Life (Benson) and a former member of the Research Group on Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences (Keuck) at the MPIWG. Alfred currently investigates changes in how psychiatric research has been evaluated as part of the postwar globalization of biomedicine. Alfred studied for a BA in History at the University of Cambridge, receiving the Cambridge Historical Society Prize for his dissertation on early modern utopian writing. In 2015, he was awarded an Isaac Newton Trust scholarship to complete an MPhil in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science where he worked on diverse areas of research from Enlightenment cartography to twentieth-century social theory.
In 2016, Alfred moved to Berlin to pursue a doctorate at the Chair for the History of Science at the Humboldt University. His doctorate combined recently declassified archival sources from the UK Medical Research Council with oral historical interviews to critically examine the rise of biological psychiatry in postwar Britain. In 2020, Alfred was a visiting scholar at the German Historical Institute in London and a visiting lecturer in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, where he taught courses on the history of the human sciences. He has published on the historiography of the neurosciences and the philosophy of biomarker research in contemporary biomedicine. In 2024, he received the Early Career Prize of the History of the Human Sciences journal for his work on postwar methodological reforms in psychiatric diagnosis. Currently, he is involved in several collaborative projects in the history of biomedicine while also completing his first monograph Biomedical Madness: Schizophrenia and the Making of Biological Psychiatry.
Projekte
Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice
Commoning Biomedicine: Networking Decentralized Collections of Oral Histories
CORAL: Commoning Oral Histories of Knowledge
History of Statistical Thinking and Practice in Medicine
Living Knowledge
Seeking Global Validation: Scales of Validity in Psychiatric and Biomedical Research
The History of Lucid Dreaming Research: An Interdisciplinary Oral History
Selected Publications
Freeborn, Alfred (2025). “Testing Psychiatrists to Diagnose Schizophrenia: Crisis, Consensus, and Computers in Post-war Psychiatry.” History of the Human Sciences, January 24, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/09526951241309504.
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Freeborn, Alfred, Lara K. Keuck, and Hanna Lucia Worliczek (2024). “Did Hamilton Ever Use the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression? Reflections on the (Re-)Use of Oral Histories and Their Accessibility via the ComBio Website.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 54 (4): 527–534. https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2024.54.4.527.
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Keuck, Lara K. and Alfred Freeborn (2020). “The Limits of Biomarkers. Contemporary Re-Phrasings of Canguilhem.” In Vital Norms: Canguilhem’s “The Normal and the Pathological” in the Twenty-First Century, ed. P.-O. Méthot, 346–367. Paris: Hermann.
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Freeborn, Alfred (2019). “The History of the Brain and Mind Sciences.” History of the Human Sciences 32 (3): 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695118815554.
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Upcoming Events
Colloquium
Science after Progress. Ethnographic Approaches to Anthropogenic Biologies and Chemicals
MOREPast Events
Colloquium
On Her Way to Cook: Women, Technology, and Cooking Knowledge in Peruvian History
MOREColloquium
Charting the Shattered Sea: Geopolitical Conflicts and East Asian Oceanography in the 20th Century
MOREColloquium
Predicting Parasite Pathologies? Coordination, Validity, and Values in Decision-Making in Serological Screening for Toxoplasmosis During Pregnancy in the 1970s
MOREWorkshop
Globalizing Schizophrenia: The History and Legacy of the WHO Studies of Schizophrenia
MORESeminar
In Search of Biomedical Validity: Towards a Cross-Disciplinary History of Validation Practices
MOREAuthors' Workshop
Biomedical Visions: Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Medical Practice
MOREPresentation
In Search of Biomedical Validity: Towards a Cross-Disciplinary History of Validation Practices
MOREWorkshop
A Little Bit Different from Oral History? The Historiographic Realm of Research Interviews in History of Science and Medicine
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: NHS Voices of Covid-19
MOREColloquium
Between Transcultural Disease and International Diagnostic Concept: The International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (1965-1973)
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: Connecting 3 Worlds
MORETalk
Commoning Biomedicine—Conversations: Science History Institute
MOREPresentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities
European Society for the History of Science Conference, Barcelona
Centre Marc Bloch
Speaker Series in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA
European Association for the History of Medicine and Health Biennal Conference, Oslo
Universität Erfurt
Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, University of Toronto Symposium, together with Simon Brausch, Sam Ducourant, Ariane Hanemaayer, Lara Keuck, Michele Luchetti, and Hanna Worliczek
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Evidenzpraktiken Workshop. Villa Vigoni, Italy
7. Offenes Forum Geschichte der Lebenswissenschaften (FoGeL), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
British Society for the History of Science Annual Conference
German Historical Institute Stipendiatenkolloquium
American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Conference