Is Democracy Therapeutic? A Deweyan Reading of the Institutions of Antipsychiatry

This article presents a Deweyan reading of the processes of critique, experimentation, and reform that took hold of a minority of psychiatric institutions in Western Europe during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, under the influence of the so-called Italian and British antipsychiatry movements. Framed within a specific understanding of the sixties, the article examines these complex theoretical and institutional operations against the background of John Dewey’s idea of democracy, which it interprets, above all else, as the constant provision of material, intellectual, and human resources for the people to directly transform their environment and themselves in increasingly complex and creative ways. After acknowledging the historical and conceptual discontinuities that exist between these two autonomous bodies of knowledge, the first section presents a summary of Dewey’s philosophy. Next the article sheds light on Basaglia’s and Laing’s antipsychiatric projects by interpreting them as a sustained effort to distinguish between schizophrenia as a first and a second disease, an epistemological search in the midst of which each of them ended up creating new institutions that necessarily embarked their inmates on a radical process of Deweyan growth. The key role of the sixties counterculture is emphasized at this point, and examples from Gorizia’s and Trieste’s asylums, as well as British community households, are read in terms of Basaglia’s and Laing’s negative and affirmative dialectics, respectively. Finally, in the last two sections, the article argues that antipsychiatry’s analysis of psychotic behavior significantly enlarges Dewey’s understanding of the circuit of growth and experience, and that Dewey’s ideas of growth and experience provided, in turn, a missing criterion for defining mental health and deriving coherent therapeutic and institutional concretions.

Popularyzatorskie audycje radiowe i telewizyjne Alodii Kaweckiej-Gryczowej, czyli o tym jak Wietor pod Krakowem w błocie utknął

In accord with her concept of constructing ‘workshops for enlightening and educating the society’ Professor Alodia Kawecka-Gryczowa was very keen on popularizing book history. Little wonder then that she let no opportunity pass to talk on the radio or the television about old prints, the National Library, or about books in general. The bibliography of her works prepared by A. M. Wolińska includes among other eight such programmes for the years 1974–1985, although Wolińska notices that, there must have been more. This statement found substantiation in the ‘Grycz papers’ bequeathed to the National Library – the folder Akc. 17978 holds typescripts of eleven radio and television programmes broadcast between 1950 and 1968, and two other with no dating. Unfortunately, the data provided by these papers does not allow a for more detailed historical description of these programmes, their dates of emission, length and producers. Neither can one find in this folder the screen-plays of the programmes listed by A. M. Wolińska, with the sole exception of the radio broadcast devoted to the printer Wietor, emitted in 1950. All the other materials come from the nineteen-fifties and the nineteen-sixties, which explains why they are not present in the Archives of the Polish Radio and Television – being either never recorded, or the tapes had been destroyed. The aforementioned folder also contains a number of catalogue cards on which one finds titles and shelf-marks of books, which were utilized by Gryczowa in her cooperation with the radio and television, although it is difficult to ascertain that all these books were gathered for programmes, in which Professor Gryczowa took part personally.

A Troubled Decade

The Nineteen-Sixties was a decade of change and turmoil as, what David Zang, termed the “American One Way” was challenged on multiple fronts. Authority was challenged and in the NFL that meant a challenge to Commissioner Pete Rozelle. Rozelle was faced with issues surrounding gambling, drugs, and race. He was criticized for his handling of the NFL response to the Kennedy Assassination. Gambling involved players and owners. The issues involving race centered on segregation, the civil rights movement, and authority. The career of Jim Brown illustrated many of these issues. Joe Namath and Commissioner Rozelle faced off over issues of gambling, authority, and the counter-culture. Vince Lombardi became a national symbol for authority and discipline. This was also a decade when NFL Films--the creation of Ed Sabol--emerged as a powerful force for marketing the NFL and its values.

Labor Issues in Sociological Research into the Social Aspects of Industrialization: The Circle of Kazimierz Dobrowolski

The objective of this article is to present one of the lineages of human resource management in Poland—industrial sociology. It was within the framework of this subdiscipline that research devoted to the social aspects of industrialization was carried out in the nineteen–sixties and seventies. Studies conducted within the circle of the Cracovian sociologist, Kazimierz Dobrowolski, looked at the industrial centers of Lesser Poland. The primary research question involves the process of the shaping of industrial company personnel in connection with the migration of rural population to industrial centers. The research demonstrated the social and cultural conditions behind this process, not only the impact of the culture of rural communities on shaping work culture in companies, but also the influence of industrial work experience on the life and cultural aspirations of rural communities.

‘The Russian Revolution has not yet taken place’: British views of the Soviet economy between the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-seventies

This article examines British officials' and ministers' attitudes towards the Soviet Union's economy in the post-Second World War era. In the nineteen-fifties and early nineteen-sixties, public and some expert commentary posited Soviet economic ‘success’ based on the country's increasingly rapid growth rate, its potential for consumerization, the promise of economic reform, and the Soviet state's emphasis on education, science and the application of computer technology. New evidence from British official archives, presented here, makes clear that Westminster and Whitehall were never persuaded of this view, and always believed that political meddling and microeconomic inefficiencies would ultimately restrain and undermine Soviet growth.

Fundamentals of RO Membrane Separation Process: Problems and Solutions

It is the intention of the authors to let the students understand the underlying principles of membrane separation processes by solving the problems numerically, in general. In particular, in this article problems and answers are presented for reverse osmosis (RO), one of the membrane separation processes driven by the transmembrane hydraulic pressure difference. The transport theories for RO were developed in early nineteen sixties, when the industrial membrane separation processes emerged. These problems are solved step by step using a simple calculator or Excel in computer.

India’s participation in IAU over the years

India was still a British colony when the International Astronomical Union was born in 1919. India did not have a national science academy nor a national research council at the time. The Royal Society, London, which was the adhering body of Great Britain to IAU, handled matters of the colony too. India formally joined the IAU in 1948 as an independent nation through an initiative taken by the Government of India. In 1968, the National Institute of Sciences of India (NISI) became the adhering organisation to the IAU, as did the other affiliate Unions of ICSU. Soon after, its name was changed to Indian National Science Academy (INSA).Till the nineteen-sixties, individual Indian membership in the IAU grew rather tardily but the situation changed with the rapid growth of astronomical activities in the country. In 1967, M.K. Vainu Bappu, the then Director of the Kodaikanal Observatory, was elected a Vice-President of the Union. In 1979, he was elected the President of IAU for the triennium 1979–1982, and during the same period, V. Radhakrishnan and Govind Swarup were elected Presidents respectively of the Commisions 34 and 40. In 1985, the General Assembly of the Union was held in New Delhi. It was dedicated to the memory of Vainu Bappu who had initiated the process of inviting the Union to hold its GA in India. A few years later the Sixth Asian-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting was held in Pune. A number of IAU symposia and colloquia have also been held in the country. During the last three decades, the engagement of the Indian astronomers with IAU has increased a great deal with a large number of them taking on important official roles in the IAU. Currently, India has close to 300 individual members.