Nicolas Langlitz

Nicolas Langlitz is an anthropologist and historian of science studying epistemic cultures of mind and life sciences. He is the author of Chimpanzee Culture Wars: Rethinking Human Nature Alongside Japanese, European, and American Cultural Primatologists (in press), Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the Decade of the Brain (2012), and Die Zeit der Psychoanalyse: Lacan und das Problem der Sitzungsdauer (2005). He also studied the interdisciplinary exchange between brain researchers and philosophers of mind, especially in the context of neuroscientific dream research. New research on how behavioral scientists study morality is underway.

CV

During his training as a physician at Freie Universität Berlin, Nicolas Langlitz contributed to research in biological psychiatry, followed the local anti-psychiatric movement, and wrote a book about Lacanian psychoanalysis (Die Zeit der Psychoanalyse: Lacan und das Problem der Sitzungsdauer, Suhrkamp, 2005). After graduating from medical school, he obtained a Ph.D. in the History of Medicine (2004) at the Humboldt University Berlin and a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology (2007) at University of California, Berkeley.

He is a and Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Notable Research Papers

• Psychedelic science as cosmic play, psychedelic humanities as perennial polemics? Or why we are still fighting over Max Weber’s Science as a Vocation. (Langlitz, 2019)
• The persistence of the subjective in neuropsychopharmacology: observations of contemporary hallucinogen research (Langlitz, 2010)
• Is there a place for psychedelics in philosophy? (Langlitz, 2016)
• Is dose escalation of antidepressants a rational strategy after a medium-dose treatment has failed? (Langlitz et al., 2005)

Books

• Chimpanzee Culture Wars: Rethinking Human Nature Alongside Japanese, European, and American Cultural Primatologists (Langlitz, 2020)
• Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research Since the Decade of the Brain (Langlitz, 2012)

Find more on his Personal Page, Google Scholar or PubMed

Media

He has given many talks:

• Politics and Psychedelics: A critical discussion between Mateo Sanchez and Nicolas Langlitz (ICPR, 2020)
• PROF. DR. NICOLAS LANGLITZ & DR. SC. HUM. HENRIK JUNGABERLE: PSYCHEDELIC HUMANITIES AND HUMANISM (Mind Academy, 2020)
• “Lullaby for a Mouse: Anthropological Observations of an Animal Model of Psychosis” (Horizons, 2011)

More media:

• Rightist Psychedelia (Society for Cultural Anthropology, 2020)
• Should Psychedelic Humanities Promote Psychedelic Humanism? (Chacruna, 2020)
• Psychedelics can’t be tested using conventional clinical trials (Aeon Magazine, 2015)