Elodie Edwards-Grossi is a French sociologist and historian. She researches the social history of racial psychiatry and theories of insanity, covering topics such as "medical apartheid" in American hospitals, theories of insanity, and resistance by patients to medical power. Her thesis was awarded several prizes, and was published in 2022. A second book on madness in the American South from 1840 to 1940 was awarded the 2023 Jules and Francis Landry Award. She was elected a junior member of the

Institut Universitaire de France The Institut Universitaire de France (IUF, Academic Institute of France), is a service of the French Ministry of Higher Education that annually distinguishes a small number of university professors for their research excellence, as evidenced by t ...

in 2023.

Academic career

In 2018, Elodie Edwards-Grossi completed her doctoral thesis in sociology at the University of Paris. Her thesis covered the history of practices of racial discrimination in medicine in the United States and the construction of medical apartheid in southern hospitals since the late nineteenth century. Prepared in part in the United States at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, and at

Tulane University The Tulane University of Louisiana (commonly referred to as Tulane University) is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by a cohort of medical doctors, it b ...

as Fulbright and Georges Lurcy Fellow, the thesis won the AFEA-Fulbright 2020 thesis prize, the PSL Science/Humanities interface price and the Prix du Conseil départemental de la Haute-Garonne in 2021. Edwards-Grossi published her first book, based on her doctoral thesis, in January 2022 through the

University of Rennes The University of Rennes (French: ''Université de Rennes'') is a public university, public research university located in Rennes, Upper Brittany, France. Originally founded in 1460, the university was split into two universities in 1970: Univers ...

Press, as ''"Bad brains" (race et psychiatrie de la fin de l'esclavage à l'époque contemporaine aux Etats-Unis''. Her second book, ''Mad with Freedom. The Political Economy of Blackness, Insanity, and Civil Rights in the U.S. South, 1840–1940,'' was published by

Louisiana State University Press The Louisiana State University Press (LSU Press) is a university press at Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, it publishes works of scholarship as well as general interest books. LSU Press is a member of the Association of University Pres ...

in 2022. The book won the 2023 Jules and Francis Landry Award. The book begins with an introduction to physician Samuel Cartwright (Cartwright is remembered for terming a slave's desire for freedom as a mental illness,

drapetomania Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Africans fleeing captivity. This hypothesis was based on the belief that slavery was such an improvement upo ...

), and then examines experiences of African American patients at three hospitals in Virginia, North Carolina, and Louisiana, spanning more than century, and attracting praise for its scope and brevity. Edwards-Grossi is an Associate Professor in American studies and sociology at IRISSO,

Université Paris Dauphine Paris Dauphine University - PSL () is a Grande École and public institution of higher education and research based in Paris, France, Collegiate university, constituent college of PSL University. As of 2022, Dauphine has 9,400 students in 8 fields ...

. She was elected a junior member of the

in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards-Grossi, Elodie French academics University of Paris alumni Academic staff of Paris Sciences et Lettres University Medical historians Living people Year of birth missing (living people)