[Please note that a previous version of this post contained an incorrect date for the conference. It will take place on January 30, not the 29th.]

Daniel Lende has already posted on this at Neuroanthropology, but we’ve been asked to put out the word as well: on January 30, 2009 the next Critical Neuroscience conference will take place at UCLA’s Semel Institute Auditorium. The theme is “Challenging reductionism in psychiatry and social neurscience.” This is another event organized by the Neuroscience in Context group — we’ve written about a workshop they hosted in Montreal this past summer — and co-sponsored by the Foundation for Psychocultural Research and McGill’s Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry.

Daniel has already listed all of the major speakers with links to their books and website, so I won’t repeat that; if you’re interested check out his post here. It promises to be an exciting event with a number of very interesting scholars from different disciplines dealing with the social life of neuroscience knowledge.

Here is a brief description of the project of Critical Neuroscience from several of the organizers:

Critical Neuroscience challenges the current emphasis on the brain by dealing with both scientific and cultural problems associated with reductionistic approaches in neuropsychiatry, considering the motivations driving the trend and suggesting some conceptual alternatives that would ultimately lead to a more integrated approach in psychiatry.

If you have any questions about the event, feel free to get in touch its principle organizer, Suparna Choudhury, of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, at schoudhury AT mpiwg-berlin DOT mpg DOT de.