4 research outputs found
The dramaturgical devices of Stanley Milgram's obedience to authority experiment
Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment is one of the most famous experiments in the
history of psychology. This magnanimous statement, and so many others like it, is
invariably followed by a claim that Milgram proved the majority of people will harm
another person if instructed to do so by an authority figure. This thesis is a close and
experiential reading of Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment conducted at Yale
University between 1960 and 1963 not to ascertain the truth behind such claims but to
accept them and build a narrative towards how they came to be.
Milgram’s experiments are a complex and nuanced case study with which to examine
the transferential relationship between science and culture. Taking the simulated shock
generator as an omnipresent and invaluable aspect of Milgram’s laboratory apparatus, I
introduce a specific way of seeing the paradigm: as a metaphorical model for critiquing
the social world rather than measuring and generalising our role as agents within it.
Incorporating a visual rhetorical approach mixed with design history, media studies
and history of science, I also demonstrate the importance of fiction in methodological
investigations in both history as well as social science. These directions help me answer
the question of: what can we learn from looking at this well-worn subject from an object
perspective; and what happens to a laboratory instrument when we take it out of its
disciplinary enclave of empirical science? The result is an imminent critique about
representational frameworks, the pursuit of knowledge and how we draw upon structures
of investigation to simultaneously inform and critique the social world.
My research draws heavily upon the Stanley Milgram Papers at Yale University, the
Archive of the History of American Psychology at University of Akron, and Dramaco
Instruments, a fictional and informative resource
The dramaturgical devices of Stanley Milgram's obedience to authority experiment
Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment is one of the most famous experiments in the
history of psychology. This magnanimous statement, and so many others like it, is
invariably followed by a claim that Milgram proved the majority of people will harm
another person if instructed to do so by an authority figure. This thesis is a close and
experiential reading of Milgram’s obedience to authority experiment conducted at Yale
University between 1960 and 1963 not to ascertain the truth behind such claims but to
accept them and build a narrative towards how they came to be.
Milgram’s experiments are a complex and nuanced case study with which to examine
the transferential relationship between science and culture. Taking the simulated shock
generator as an omnipresent and invaluable aspect of Milgram’s laboratory apparatus, I
introduce a specific way of seeing the paradigm: as a metaphorical model for critiquing
the social world rather than measuring and generalising our role as agents within it.
Incorporating a visual rhetorical approach mixed with design history, media studies
and history of science, I also demonstrate the importance of fiction in methodological
investigations in both history as well as social science. These directions help me answer
the question of: what can we learn from looking at this well-worn subject from an object
perspective; and what happens to a laboratory instrument when we take it out of its
disciplinary enclave of empirical science? The result is an imminent critique about
representational frameworks, the pursuit of knowledge and how we draw upon structures
of investigation to simultaneously inform and critique the social world.
My research draws heavily upon the Stanley Milgram Papers at Yale University, the
Archive of the History of American Psychology at University of Akron, and Dramaco
Instruments, a fictional and informative resource
Re-enactment Recipes
"Re-enactment Recipes gathers essays, photographs, drawings and creative writing in the form of recipes. These are recipes in an expanded sense: imagined sets of instructions, lists, and conceptual ingredients enrich this book, which does more than cook your weekday meal. In its pages, twenty-two emerging writers and artists share instructions for meals remembered and commentary on food, community and nourishment." -- Publisher's website