Department of English

• Wednesday, November 5, 2025 - 6:30pm to 8:30pm

FBH Faculty Lounge (room 135)

Please welcome Don James McLaughlin (PHD, 2017) back to Penn English to celebrate the publication of his book, Phobia and American Literature, 1705-1937: A Therapeutic History (Oxford University Press, 2025). Don James writes:

"When did phobias begin to be diagnosed in American medicine, politics, and culture? This talk presents a new history of phobia’s emergence as a framework for understanding the human mind and political life from the colonial period to the early United States. In piecing together the context for phobia’s burgeoning versatility, I propose that a tradition of exploring the nature of fear in American literature and medicine prompted the rise of a public mental health print culture attuned to the psychophysiological wellbeing of early American readers."

Bio:  https://utulsa.edu/people/don-mclaughlin/