Participant Info
- First Name
- Elizabeth
- Last Name
- Nelson
- Country
- United States
- State
- IN Indiana
- eanelson@indiana.edu
- Affiliation
- Medical Humanities & Health Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI)
- Website URL
- elizabethanelson.com
- Keywords
- deinstitutionalization, psychiatry, intellectual disability, prisons, asylums, mental health, public history, science, technology, community
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and Health Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI).
My specialty is history of medicine and mental health care, and my research examines the history of patient-staff relationships in mental institutions, in both France and the U.S. I explore the limitations and failures of past mental health reforms, as well as scientific innovation, creative expression, and community-building inside psychiatric facilities.
Currently, I am working on two book projects. The first is a study of how deinstitutionalization affected patients with intellectual disabilities at Indiana’s Central State Hospital in the 1990s (with Emily Beckman and Modupe Labode). This project was inspired by the patient-produced newsletter, The DDU Review. The second is based on my doctoral dissertation (IU Bloomington, 2015). This project examines the roles played by art and science in the reform of French psychiatry at the turn of the twentieth century.
In my teaching and research I strive for public engagement, drawing on my experience as Director of Public Programs at the Indiana Medical History Museum (2014-2017). Since January 2018 I’ve served as a consultant for the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project, in which incarcerated women are producing critical historical studies of gender, sexuality, and incarceration in Indiana.
- Recent Publications
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- @NelsonHistorian
- Country Focus
- United States and France
- Expertise by Geography
- France, United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 19th century, 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Medicine, Museums, Public History, Science, Technology, Women
