Numbing the pains of modernity: Sensory deprivation, and post-war psychology in Canada (1948-1974)

Daniel’s dissertation is an interdisciplinary history of how “numbness” came to be studied and disciplined to model the effects of modernity on the human body in Canada and the United States during the 20^th century. Through studies of sensory deprivation, overstimulation, isolation, and addiction, this project traces how numbness became an object of scientific and theoretical fascination in the field of anaesthetics, psychosomatic medicine, sensory deprivation experiments, and computer sciences. In each of these case studies, the numbed body was a significant experimental foundation for both cognition, learning and media effects. Using archival materials across medical associations, university archives, and private research collections, this project re-centers the history of medicine within the development of contemporary models of machine learning; contextualizes today’s theories of media effects; and provides analysis of the military, scientific, and political apparatuses that have shaped our contemporary understanding of body and mind.