Negotiating credibility : the role of institutions in the articulation of mesmeric knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781)
- Author
- Chloé Conickx (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781) are often understood as apologetic defences, in which Mesmer retrospectively narrates his negative experiences with medical and scientific institutions. In actual fact, these two texts offer excellent heuristic tools to re-evaluate the role of institutions in relation to the development of mesmerism in the late 1770s and early 1780s. In this presentation, I argue that Mesmer appropriated and deployed institutional rejections in the form of rhetorical and narrative strategies to turn his ‘unexplainable’ doctrine intelligible and to benefit its credibility. In particular, Mesmer translated his experiences to a socio-epistemic pathology in which ‘disease’ became synonymous with (institutional) failure. It offered the means to demonstrate and specify mesmeric therapeutic principles and epistemology in terms of what they were not.
- Keywords
- mesmerism, institutional histories, credibility
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8711393
- MLA
- Conickx, Chloé. Negotiating Credibility : The Role of Institutions in the Articulation of Mesmeric Knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis Historique (1781). 2021.
- APA
- Conickx, C. (2021). Negotiating credibility : the role of institutions in the articulation of mesmeric knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781). Presented at the HARMONIA UNIVERSALIS : du mouvement mesmérien à l’internationale magnétiste. Journée d’étude : Écritures du magnétisme animal, Online (Paris).
- Chicago author-date
- Conickx, Chloé. 2021. “Negotiating Credibility : The Role of Institutions in the Articulation of Mesmeric Knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis Historique (1781).” In .
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Conickx, Chloé. 2021. “Negotiating Credibility : The Role of Institutions in the Articulation of Mesmeric Knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis Historique (1781).” In .
- Vancouver
- 1.Conickx C. Negotiating credibility : the role of institutions in the articulation of mesmeric knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781). In 2021.
- IEEE
- [1]C. Conickx, “Negotiating credibility : the role of institutions in the articulation of mesmeric knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781),” presented at the HARMONIA UNIVERSALIS : du mouvement mesmérien à l’internationale magnétiste. Journée d’étude : Écritures du magnétisme animal, Online (Paris), 2021.
@inproceedings{8711393,
abstract = {{Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781) are often understood as apologetic defences, in which Mesmer retrospectively narrates his negative experiences with medical and scientific institutions. In actual fact, these two texts offer excellent heuristic tools to re-evaluate the role of institutions in relation to the development of mesmerism in the late 1770s and early 1780s. In this presentation, I argue that Mesmer appropriated and deployed institutional rejections in the form of rhetorical and narrative strategies to turn his ‘unexplainable’ doctrine intelligible and to benefit its credibility. In particular, Mesmer translated his experiences to a socio-epistemic pathology in which ‘disease’ became synonymous with (institutional) failure. It offered the means to demonstrate and specify mesmeric therapeutic principles and epistemology in terms of what they were not.}},
author = {{Conickx, Chloé}},
keywords = {{mesmerism,institutional histories,credibility}},
language = {{fre}},
location = {{Online (Paris)}},
title = {{Negotiating credibility : the role of institutions in the articulation of mesmeric knowledge in Mesmer’s Mémoire (1779) and Précis historique (1781)}},
year = {{2021}},
}