The Towson University Journal of International Affairs is honored to host Assistant Chair TU’s Department of History, Dr. Benjamin Zajicek in the 14th presentation of the Eric A. Belgrad Speaker Series on Monday, October 27th from 6:00-8:00pm in LA 4310. The topic of Dr. Zajicek’s lecture is:

“‘Communism should not be judged by its psychopaths!’ Social Danger, Mental Illness, and Involuntary Commitment in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union”

This talk will explain a shift in Soviet medical and political discourse in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the category of “the mentally ill” came to be constructed as inherently prone to criminal disruption of social order, despite the long-held Soviet ideological prescription against “biologizing” criminal acts. Using previously unstudied conference proceedings, archival reports, and published papers by forensic psychiatrists, KGB officials, and Party leaders, Dr. Zajicek is able to show how medical expertise and large-scale data collection was used to convince Party officials and state officials to agree to structural changes in the law and administration of psychiatric patients. One significant result was the creation of a country-wide mental health surveillance system and a legal process that enabled psychiatrists to forcibly commit a patient even if they had never committed a “socially dangerous act.” These policies were not narrowly aimed at political dissidents but rather intended to establish population-wide social control mechanisms to defend the social body of “developed socialism” from the inherent criminality of the mentally ill. The ramifications of this policy regime are still being felt today.

Dr. Benjamin Zajicek’s BiographyName

Benjamin Zajicek joined the History Department in 2010. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Chicago for his dissertation, “Scientific Psychiatry in Stalin’s Soviet Union: The Politics of Modern Medicine and the Struggle to Define ‘Pavlovian’ Psychiatry, 1939-1953.” His research focuses on the Soviet Union in the Stalin era, particularly the history of professions and the history of psychiatry. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Soviet Psychiatry under Stalin.”

INFORMATION ABOUT PARKING

The best place to park for this event is the Towsontown Garage, which is located on University Avenue just off Towsontown Boulevard. If you are coming from Bosley Avenue or West Burke Avenue, the garage will be on your left. If you are coming from North Charles Street, the garage will be on your right. Once you enter the garage through the commuter entrance to the left, you will need to purchase a visitor permit using the ParkMobile app. Instructions for purchasing parking will be on the signs attached to the parking space.

 

After you have parked, walk up the ramp and take the main walkway into the College of Liberal Arts. You should be seeing this entrance:

Once you have entered the building, take a left turn and walk to the elevators across from Room 2310. Take them to the 4th floor, and you will end up right outside Room 4310.