Christopher Harding (born July 1978) is a cultural historian of modern India and Japan, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, broadcaster and journalist. [1] His series on culture and mental health, The Borders of Sanity, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in 2016. [2]
Harding's book, The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives, was included in The Times' best history books of the year 2020. [3]
A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe mental disorders. These institutions cater to patients with conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and eating disorders, among others.
A colonial mentality is an internalized ethnic, linguistic, or cultural inferiority complex imposed on peoples as a result of colonization, i.e. being invaded and conquered by another nation state and then being gaslit, often through the educational system, into linguistic imperialism and cultural assimilation through an instilled belief that the language and culture of the colonizer are superior to their own heritage languages and cultures. Such a mentality may also be developed among the descendants of families who chose voluntary immigration to another nation state, only to be similarly gaslit, bullied, and shamed for their bilingualism, loyalty to any elements of their ancestral culture, and ability to speak immigrant languages. The term has been used by postcolonial scholars to discuss the transgenerational legacy still present in independent states following decolonization. It is commonly used as an operational concept for framing ideological domination in historical colonial experiences. In psychology, colonial mentality has been used to explain instances of collective depression, anxiety, and other widespread mental health issues in populations that have experienced colonization.
Hikikomori, also known as severe social withdrawal, is total withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. Hikikomori refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves, described as loners or "modern-day hermits". The phenomenon is primarily recognized in Japan, although similar concepts exist in other languages and cultures, especially South Korea. Estimates suggest that in Japan, half a million youths have become social recluses, as well as more than half a million middle-aged individuals. In South Korea, the estimates vary from around 350,000–500,000.
William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple is an India-based Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.
Girindrasekhar Bose was an early 20th-century Indian psychoanalyst, the first president (1922–1953) of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society. Bose carried on a twenty-year dialogue with Sigmund Freud. Known for disputing the specifics of Freud's Oedipus complex theory, he has been pointed to by some as an early example of non-Western contestations of Western methodologies. Apart from this, he also started the first general hospital psychiatry unit (GHPU) in Asia at the R.G. Kar Medical College, Calcutta in 1933.
Shūmei Ōkawa was a Japanese nationalist and Pan-Asianist writer, known for his publications on Japanese history, philosophy of religion, Indian philosophy, and colonialism.
Horatio Clare is a Welsh author known for travel, memoir, nature and children's books, and his writing and broadcasting on mental health and psychiatry. He worked at the BBC as a producer on Front Row, Night Waves and The Verb. He is a senior lecturer in creative non-fiction at the University of Manchester.
Bania is a mercantile caste mainly from the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, with strong diasporic communities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra and other northern states. Traditionally, the main occupations of the community are merchants, bankers, money-lenders, and owners of commercial enterprises.
East Asia is a geographical and cultural region of Asia including China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. Additionally, Hong Kong and Macau are the two special administrative regions of China. The economies of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are among the world's largest and most prosperous. East Asia borders North Asia to the north, Southeast Asia to the south, South Asia to the southwest, and Central Asia to the west. To its east is the Pacific Ocean.
Sanjay Subrahmanyam is a historian of the early modern period. He is the author of several books and publications. He holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences at UCLA which he joined in 2004.
Amiya Prosad Sen is a historian with an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of modern India. Currently he is Sivadasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford (UK). He was previously the Heinrich Zimmer Chair at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University. He has served as Professor of Modern Indian History at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has been Agatha Harrison Fellow to the University of Oxford and Visiting Fellow to the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi. During 2007–08, he was Tagore professor at Vishwa Bharati, Shantiniketan.
Stephen Walker is a British author and filmmaker. He was educated at Oxford and Harvard universities. He has directed or produced around 30 films, and was twice voted in the top 10 directors in the UK in Broadcast magazine. His production company is Walker George Films. His author website is Stephen Walker Beyond.
Paul Crawford FRSA, FAcSS, FRSPH is an English academic and writer.
Vinay Lal is an Indian historian. He is a professor of history and Asian American studies at UCLA. He writes widely on the history and culture of colonial and modern India, popular and public culture in India, cinema, historiography, the politics of world history, the Indian diaspora, global politics, contemporary American politics, the life and thought of Mohandas Gandhi, Hinduism, and the politics of knowledge systems.
Daniel Pick is a British historian, psychoanalyst, university teacher, writer and occasional broadcaster. Between 2014 and 2021, he was the recipient of a senior Investigator grant from the Wellcome Trust and led a research group at Birkbeck exploring the history of the human sciences and 'psy' professions during the Cold War. The project was entitled 'Hidden Persuaders': Brainwashing, Culture, Clinical Knowledge and the Cold War Human Sciences, c. 1950-1990'.
Jane Chapman is a British academic, professor of communications at the University of Lincoln, a research associate and a former fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge and the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge. She is the author of twelve books and over 35 academic articles and book chapters.
Suzanne Newcombe researches the modern history of yoga and new and minority religions. She states that she is particularly interested in "the interfaces between religion, health and healing." She is known in particular for her work on yoga for women and yoga in Britain.
Richard Maxwell Eaton is an American historian, currently working as a professor of history at the University of Arizona. He is known for having written the notable books on the history of India before 1800. He is also credited for his work on the social roles of Sufis, slavery, and cultural history of pre-modern India. His research is focused on the Deccan, the Bengal frontier, and Islam in India. Some of his notable works include Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States and India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765, which gives a cultural and historical overview of India from the medieval period to the arrival of the British.
Jayasree Kalathil is an Indian writer, translator, mental health researcher and activist. She is known for her work in the area of mental health activism as well as for her translations of Malayalam works, The Diary of a Malayali Madman and Moustache, the former winning Crossword Book Award and the latter, the JCB Prize for Literature, both in 2020. Her latest work, Valli, A Novel was among the works shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2022.