My research spans medical anthropology and science and technology studies. Currently I am writing an ethnographic monograph bridging the phenomenologies and practices of working upon psychedelic experiences on the one hand, and experiences labelled ‘psychotic’ on the other. I received my PhD in 2012 in socio-legal studies from the University of Bristol, analysing formations of knowledge and authority in mental health self-help and mutual aid collectives. Since then I have been researching ‘consciousness cultures’ more broadly, including the resurgence of overground and underground interest in the use of drugs to produce psychedelic experiences. From 2013-2015 I spearheaded qualitative research as part of a clinical trials team studying psychedelics at Johns Hopkins University, and I have since taught at New York University and the University of East London. In 2008, I co-founded the Authority Research Network, an early-career collective of academics based in the UK, Ireland and Brazil.
While I am happy to work with reviews on any topic, my particular interests lie in the areas of:
- Politics of knowledge, evidence and authority,
- Spirituality, mysticism and mythology,
- Altered states and extreme/limit experiences, and
- Algorithmic life and computational psychiatry.
I am happy to work with any kind of review format, and am particularly interested in reviews that experiment with form and incorporate reflexivity. I welcome interviews with authors, book forums with multiple reviewers, and single reviews of multiple books on the same topic.
See what Tehseen has been posting on The Polyphony here.