Jeffrey Mathias
Hello, I am a writer, an erstwhile academic, and an American living in London. My writing primarily explores the modern “sciences of subjectivity”- psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience- and their shifting methodologies, politics, and preoccupations. I have articles published or forthcoming in publications such as Parapraxis and Isis on topics ranging from the religious history of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy to the FBI’s suspicions that the Unabomber was a historian of science.
I am currently training as a psychoanalyst at the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
I am currently writing a book on Cold War experiments in human isolation for University of Chicago Press. In it, I uncover a hidden cultural history of solitude as a key to the sciences of mind in the 20th century. This project was featured heavily in a recent article in the New York Times Magazine. I am represented by the Aevitas Creative literary agency.
Along with Hannah Zeavin, I am co-editor of Reconsidering John C. Lilly, to be published some time in 2025 by MIT Press. Drawn from the conference of the same name, the volume brings together historians and media studies scholars to re-evaluate the life and legacy of the neuroscientist and countercultural icon.
I am allegedly a historian of science and hold a PhD from Cornell University. My time in the academy was unusual. As far as I know, I am the only person to have been funded by NASA to research the history of LSD. I can be contacted via email here.
The FBI, HSS, and the Unabomber, co-authored with Patrick McCray, Isis, September 2024.
On the Swimming Pool as Scientific Instrument, in Reconsidering John C. Lilly, MIT Press, expected 2025. (Please email for pre-print.)
The Astronaut Alone, Solitudes: Past and Present, September 2021.
American Solitude: Notes Toward a History of Isolation, Perspectives on American History, March 2021.
I am currently writing a book on Cold War experiments in human isolation for University of Chicago Press. In it, I uncover a hidden cultural history of solitude as a key to the sciences of mind in the 20th century. This project was featured heavily in a recent article in the New York Times Magazine. I am represented by the Aevitas Creative literary agency.
Along with Hannah Zeavin, I am co-editor of Reconsidering John C. Lilly, to be published some time in 2025 by MIT Press. Drawn from the conference of the same name, the volume brings together historians and media studies scholars to re-evaluate the life and legacy of the neuroscientist and countercultural icon.
I am allegedly a historian of science and hold a PhD from Cornell University. My time in the academy was unusual. As far as I know, I am the only person to have been funded by NASA to research the history of LSD. I can be contacted via email here.
Recent Writing...
The FBI, HSS, and the Unabomber, co-authored with Patrick McCray, Isis, September 2024.
On the Swimming Pool as Scientific Instrument, in Reconsidering John C. Lilly, MIT Press, expected 2025. (Please email for pre-print.)
The Astronaut Alone, Solitudes: Past and Present, September 2021.
American Solitude: Notes Toward a History of Isolation, Perspectives on American History, March 2021.