Eva Yampolsky
Senior Research Associate
Eva Yampolsky’s research focuses on the history of madness in early modern and contemporary periods, articulating the history of medicine and religion studies.
After her doctoral studies in 19th-century French literature, at Emory University (Atlanta, USA, 2011), Eva Yampolsky received a PhD in the history of medicine at the University of Lausanne in 2019, which received a prize from the Faculté des Lettres. This second PhD deals with the history of psychiatry in 19th-century France, and more specifically on suicide as a medical issue. She then conducted research at the Institute of the Humanities in Medicine (CHUV&UNIL) within the FNS project (178886) on the Medical discourses and practices of the nervous body. The Convulsionaries of Saint-Medard between the mystical and the pathological (2018-2022). Based on narratives of the sick, this work deals more specifically with the natural or miraculous healing process during the 18th century. Currently, she is conducting research, at the iEH2, within the FNS project (204309), directed by Andrea Carlino, entitled: “Observing madness. Demonic possession in 17th-century France, between medicine and religion” (2021-2025). Her research within this project focuses on the articulation between medical and religious processes of observation, in cases of demonic possession.
Aside from her work in this history of medicine, she is also interested in contemporary questions, such as suicidology, assisted suicide, palliative care and nursing. Indeed, she is the Principal Investigator in the Palliative Care Unit, at the Lausanne University Hospital, in a project on the role of personal and cultural ressources of nurses in the care for dying patients. In addition, she collaborates regularly with specialists in the humanities and social sciences (IHM in Lausanne, CAK in Paris, among others), as well as with healthcare professionals, such as the METHODS Unit at the Inserm, in Paris, Malatavie. Unité de Crise (HUG/Fondation Children Action) and the HESAV.
Research interests
- 17th-19th century history of medicine
- History of madness in early modern and contemporary periods
- Medicine and religion (healing miracles, demonic possession)
- Witness accounts, narratives and case studies in medicine
- History of medical observation
- History of suicide, assisted suicide and palliative care
- Nursing
Teaching
Eva Yampolsky teaching a regular course at the School of Medicine at the University of Lausanne, on suicide and its prevention.
Editorial responsibilities
Eva Yampolsky is the founder and co-director of the Asclepios books series at Jerome Millon Publishing (Grenoble), which publishes scientific editions of classical works on the relations between medicine and religion.
Publications
Books
- With Vincent Barras, Léonard Dolivo and Serge Margel (dirs.), Entre naturel et surnaturel, les corps affectés au 18e siècle, Lausanne, BHMS, in preparation for 2023.
- The madness of suicide. A history of voluntary death as a medical object in 19th-century France, English translation of La folie du suicide (BHMS, forthcoming), in preparation.
- Le corps en convulsion. Les savoirs et les pratiques de guérison, entre le naturel et le surnaturel en France moderne. History of neurology, competing spheres of knowledge, medicine and religion, patient narratives, in preparation.
- La folie du suicide. Une histoire de la mort volontaire comme objet médical en France de la fin du XVIIIe siècle aux années 1870, Lausanne, BHMS, forthcoming.
- La folie du suicide. Une histoire de la mort volontaire comme objet médical en France de la fin du XVIIIe siècle aux années 1870, PhD Dissertation, University of Lausanne, 2019.
- Identity Trouble: Fragmentation and Disillusion in the Works of Guy de Maupassant, New York, Peter Lang, 2017.
Scientific Editions
- François Ranchin, Traité sur les causes de la cruentation des corps morts à la présence des meurtriers et autres textes, scientific edition and introduction, Grenoble, Editions Jérôme Millon, 2019. Law and medicine in early modern France.
- Guy de Maupassant, Contes sur le suicide, Paris, Allia, 2015.
Articles in peer-reviewed journals
- With Camille Jaccard, “La douleur morale à l’épreuve des aliénistes. L’histoire d’un concept médical au 19e s. en France,” in preparation.
- “The role of nurses in the prevention of suicide in 19th-century France”, European Journal for Nursing History and Medicine, in preparation.
- Avec Frédéric Balard et Murielle Pott, « Suicide among the elderly in France and Switzerland : What does the societal context tell us about the place of relatives ? », Death Studies, May 2021. DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2021.1926634
- « La lecture et la mort : Le suicide et le pouvoir contagieux de la littérature », L’Esprit Créateur, vol. 61, no. 1, 2021, p. 109-122. DOI : 10.1353/esp.2021.0008.
- With Howard I. Kushner, “Morality, mental illness, and the prevention of suicide,” Social Epistemology, special issue edited by Katrina Jaworski and Ian Marsh, February 2020, p. 533-543. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2020.1725926
- With Marc Renneville, “Histoires de la pathologie du suicide,” Criminocorpus [Online], La pathologie du suicide, Presentation of the conference, May 2018. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/3775
- “La pathologie du suicide chez Fodéré. Les ambiguités du discours entre crime et folie,’ Criminocorpus [Online], La pathologie du suicide, Communications, May 2018. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/3789
- “La perversion du suicide, entre la pathologie et la morale,” in Criminocorpus [Online], Sujets déviants, sujets pervers. Pathologie mentale, sexualité et expérience de l’autre, Communications, May 2017. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/3481
- “Manifeste mode d’emploi. L’action collective à l’époque des reseaux socionumériques,” in Le Manifeste. Une pratique d’écriture, entre art, littérature et politique, in Revue Lignes, 40, special issue directed by Serge Margel and Eva Yampolsky, February 2013.
Book chapters (majority peer-reviewed)
- “Les ressources personnelles et culturelles dans la prise en charge des patients en soins palliatifs”, Genève, Georg, forthcoming. Peer-reviewed.
- “Le processus thérapeutique chez les Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard, entre le naturel et le surnaturel,” in V. Barras, L. Dolivo, S. Margel et E. Yampolsky (dirs.), Entre naturel et surnaturel, les corps affectés au XVIIIe siècle, Lausanne, BHMS, in preparation for 2023. Peer-reviewed.
- “Les femmes en convulsion au XVIIIe siècle, entre miracle et folie, ou la polémique médico-religieuse autour des Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard,” in M. Closson, N. Grande, C. Nédelec, G. Tranié (eds.), Femme et folie sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Garnier, coll. “masculin/féminin dans l’Europe moderne,” in press, 2023. Peer-reviewed.
- “De l’anachronisme à l’invention de l’histoire. Jean Wier à l’épreuve de la psychiatrie,” in Jean Wier, Cinq livres de l’imposture et tromperies des diables, des enchantements et sorcelleries (1569), scientific edition by S. Margel, Grenoble, Editions Jérôme Millon, 2021, p. 665-697.
- “La médecine en modernité, au croisement des savoirs” (introduction), in François Ranchin, Traité sur les causes de la cruentation des corps morts à la présence des meurtriers et autres textes, scientific edition by Eva Yampolsky, Grenoble, Editions Jérôme Millon, 2019, p. 5-22.
- “De la stylistique à la statistique ou le suicide du prince de Condé. Un conflit de pouvoir entre médecine et politique,” in Xavier Le Person and Stanis Perez (eds.), Maladies diplomatiques. Souverains et puissants face à la maladie de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Lyon, Jacques André Éditeur, 2018, pp. 141-155. Peer-reviewed.
- “Du crime à la folie. Une étude historique des approches médicales sur le suicide au début du XIXe s. en France,” in G. Bouchaud, C. Crépiat, G. Derbac, A. Gayte-Papon de Lameigné and A. Juliet (eds.), Le suicide. Question individuelle ou sociétale ?, Proceedings of conference at Clermont-Ferrand in June 12-13, 2014, Clermont-Ferrand, Editions du Centre Michel de l’Hospital, 2018, pp. 131-146. Peer-reviewed.
Direction of special journal issues
- With Serge Margel, Folie et cinéma, Lausanne, revue Décadrage, le cinéma à travers champs, in preparation. Peer-reviewed.
- With Marc Renneville, special issue: “La pathologie du suicide. Les enjeux médicaux et socio-politiques,” Criminocorpus. Revue hypermédia, May 2018. Peer-reviewed. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/3771
- With Serge Margel, special issue: “Le Manifeste. Une pratique d’écriture, entre art, littérature et politique”, Lignes, 40, 2013.
Book review
- Francesco Paolo de Ceglia (éd.), The Body of Evidence. Corpses and Proofs in Early Modern European Medicine, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2020, in Gesnerus, vol. 77, no. 2, 2020, p. 457-458.
Non-peer-reviewed article
- “The pathology of suicide: between insanity and morality,” on The History of Emotions Blog, August 2016, abridged version of a conference presented on June 15, 2016 at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, at Queen Mary University of London. https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2016/08/the-pathology-of-suicide-between-insanity-and-morality/
Translations
- Serge Margel, On Imposture: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Literary Lies and Political Fiction, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, French-English, March 2022.
- Catherine Fowler, « « Bobby de Chantal Akerman » : de Vertigo de Hitchcock à La Captive de Chantal Akerman », in François Bovier et Serge Margel (éds.), Décadrage. Cinéma, à travers champs, no. 46, forthcoming in 2022.
- Texts on ethnographic cinema, in François Bovier and Serge Margel (éds.), Décadrage. Cinéma, à travers champs, no. 40-42, special issue on ethnographic cinema, Spring/Autumn 2019, English-French: Nancy Lutkehaus, “Timothy Asch et la Cambridge Connection : le cinéma ethnographique américain des années 1950 et 1960,” p. 226-238.
- Scott MacDonald, “Le troisième homme : un entretien avec Craig Johnson,” p. 239-261.
- Texts on film editing, in Bertrand Bacqué, Lucrezia Lippi, Serge Margel et Olivier Zuchuat (dirs.), Montage. Une anthologie (1913-2018), Geneva, Presses du MAMCO, 2018, English-French: Epes Winthrop Sargent, “Le cut-back,” p. 29-30.
- Victor Oscar Freeburg, “La construction de l’intrigue,” p. 41-42.
- Gregory Markopoulos, “Vers une nouvelle forme de narration filmique,” p. 243-244.
- Stan Brakhage, “Lettre de Brakhage : de la collure,” p. 245-249.
- Alfred Hitchcock, avec Fletcher Markel, “Discussion avec Hitchcock,” p. 256-257.
- David Bordwell, “Vers des normes intrinsèques,” p. 401-410.
- With J.-P. Payet and B. Kouadio. Howard S. Becker, “Etudier l’école” (“Studying Urban Schools” [1983]), in Jean-Paul Payet (dir.), Ethnographie de l’école. Les coulisses des institutions scolaires et socio-éducatives, Rennes, PUR, 2016, p. 9-20, French-English.
-
Serge Margel, “The Madness of the Double. Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques,” in Art in the Service of Humanity : Rousseau and DIGNITY, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2017, French-English.
-
Serge Margel, “The Society of the Spectral,” in Diacritics (Johns Hopkins University Press), Fall 2013, French-English.