The tortoise and the love-machine: Grey Walter and the politics of electroencephalography.
The life of the pioneer electroencephalographer, William Grey Walter, initially appears to be a paradigmatic example of the process of network building and delegation identified by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. In his professional career, Walter continually repositioned himself, moving from an unhappy beginning as an expert in the apparently unless and suspect technology of the EEG, to become a self-styled crucial mediator in subjects as diverse as medical diagnosis, forensic detection, marriage counseling, and international diplomacy. This position was achieved moreover through the construction and co-option of human and mechanical accomplices - laboratory assistants, electrical tortoises, and mechanical analyzers - which sustained his research and propagated his arguments. However in contrast to Callon and Latour's atomistic account of scientific power and agency, this paper will extend their analysis to explore the impact of network building and delegation on domestic life, human desire, and personal identity. Walter's engagement with the complexities of love and the human brain demonstrates how the transformative power of scientific rhetoric extends simultaneously into both the organization of the world and the subjectivity of the individual.
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of East Anglia.
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Hayward
D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D008149:Love; D009488:Neurosciences; D011057:Politics; D006113:United Kingdom