Who we are
LAB FOUNDER & DIRECTOR:
Nicolas Langlitz, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College. He was trained as a physician and received doctoral degrees in the history of medicine (Freie Universität Berlin) and medical anthropology (University of California, Berkeley). His second book Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the Decade of the Brain (University of California Press, 2012) covers the preclinical phase of the psychedelic renaissance. He also wrote a book about the history of psychoanalysis (Die Zeit der Psychoanalyse: Lacan und das Problem der Sitzungsdauer, Suhrkamp, 2005), which informs his interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies as ethical projects. His most recent book is Chimpanzee Culture Wars: Rethinking Human Nature Alongside Japanese, European, and American Cultural Primatologists (Princeton University Press, 2020). At present, Langlitz is working on a philosophical book of micro-essays on the moral psychopharmacology of psychedelics. Ethnographically, he has begun to study how the development of novel psychedelic compounds and novel psychotherapeutic practices set the stage for the introduction of psychedelics into Western medicine. For more information, see www.nicolaslanglitz.de.
Recent articles:
Langlitz, N. (2016). Is there a place for psychedelics in philosophy? Common Knowledge,22(3), 373–384. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-3622224
Langlitz, N. (2019). Psychedelic science as cosmic play, psychedelic humanities as perennial polemics? Or why we are still fighting over Max Weber’s Science as a Vocation. Journal of Classical Sociology, 19(3), 275–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X19851405
Langlitz, N. (2020a, July 21). Rightist Psychedelia. Society for Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/rightist-psychedelia
Langlitz, N. (2020b, August 3). Should Psychedelic Humanities promote Psychedelic Humanism?https://chacruna.net/should-psychedelic-humanities-promote-psychedelic-humanism/
LAB CO-FOUNDER & PROGRAM MANAGER:
Esenia K. Cassidy is a mental health academic and practitioner with a background in social justice, media, and education. Esenia’s interdisciplinary research of psychedelics is focused on attachment, gender, trauma, and harm reduction. Esenia is a PhD Student at the Ohio State University College of Social Work and a member of Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education researching gender identity and its relation to psychedelic use, passions for substance use, and challenging psychedelic experiences, among other topics. Esenia is also a project lead at the SexTech Lab (NSSR) and the Granqvist Attachment & Psychedelics Lab (Stockholm University). Esenia earned a Master’s degree in Psychology with a Concentration in Substance Abuse Counseling from The New School for Social Research. Esenia’s interdisciplinary approach is rooted in the commitment to addressing complex societal issues through diverse innovative research and clinical practice.
Recent articles:
Cassidy, K., Healy, C., Henje, E., & D’Andrea, W. (2024). Childhood trauma, challenging experiences, and posttraumatic growth in ayahuasca use. Drug Science, Policy and Law, 10, 20503245241238316. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503245241238316
Gorman, I., Nielson, E. M., Molinar, A., Cassidy, K., & Sabbagh, J. (2021). Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration: A transtheoretical model for clinical practice. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 645246. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645246
LAB MANAGER & RESEARCH ASSISTANT:
Minsu Yoo is a PhD student at the Anthropology Department of the New School for Social Research. Her research interests center upon the innovation paradigm within psychopharmaceutical industries and institutional geographies of healthcare practices. Currently, Minsu is finishing her book on a qualitative engagement with psychotherapeutics in South Korea’s post-capitalist context, which is forthcoming in 2023. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Sociology from Seoul National University and a Bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) in English Literature from Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul.
LAB MEMBERS:
Amadeus Harte is doing a PhD in the anthropology department at Princeton University. Her fieldwork on psychedelic clinical trials explores how and why people with transdiagnostic mental health disorders “get better” and change (or not) following a medicalized psychedelic assisted therapy experience. It asks how, if at all, psychedelic assisted therapy (PAT) impacts a person’s sense of Self, and how it relates to sociocultural systems of value. It examines neuroscientific theories of Self/Ego and Critical Learning Periods, asking: how and what do people learn about themselves and their place in the world in the healing process when navigating symptoms and diagnoses; how does PAT impact their sense of agency, responsibility, and relationships; how does the medicalization of suffering shape the psychedelic experience, and what does it actually mean to heal. It also explores the role of political economy, industry, and regulation in shaping both psychiatric clinical trials and mental health more generally. Amadeus is also interested in psychoanalysis, philosophy of science, and phenomenology.
Dante Ascarrunz is a multifaceted learner, aspiring clinical psychologist, and professional classical double bassist. Dante graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2018 with a BA in Neuroscience, a BM in Classical Double Bass Performance, and a minor in Leadership Studies. Additionally, he holds Master of Music degrees in Double Bass Performance and Orchestral Performance from the Colburn School and Manhattan School of Music, respectively. Amid a career change driven by a strong interest in mental health and wellbeing, Dante plans to complete a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology, with a particular focus on mindfulness-based interventions. As a member of the Psychedelic Humanities lab, Dante is interested in applying his interdisciplinary perspective to understanding the epistemologies and methodologies underlying psychedelic psychotherapy. Dante is also a research assistant at Yeshiva University’s Mindfulness, Eating Disorders, and Acceptance Lab, headed by Dr. Margaret Sala.
Emma Stamm, PhD is an Assistant Professor of STS at SUNY Farmingdale. Her areas of specialization include critical theory, philosophy of technology, philosophy of science, and critical AI studies. Her dissertation, Hallucinating Facts: Psychedelic Science and the Epistemic Power of Data, presented psychedelic science as a case study in the scientific problems of data-positivist epistemologies. Departing from theoretical scholarship on digital media and the sociology of scientific knowledge, Hallucinating Facts examines psychedelic experience as empirical, categorically defined, and of interest to “hard” science, while demanding humanistic interpretive lenses — lenses that cannot be assimilated into the image of reality presupposed by automated knowledge-production processes. Her current book project, Technological Realism and the Future of the Imagination, explores psychedelic experience among other sites of human interest as confounds to the realist epistemologies advanced by digital media. In addition to teaching at SUNY Farmingdale, Stamm has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Tech. Beyond academic research, she writes for non-specialist outlets, with bylines in Vice Motherboard, Real Life Magazine, and The New Inquiry, among other publications. She also writes fiction and music for piano. Her website is www.o-culus.com.
Sofia Sakopoulos received her B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Northeastern University and is completing an M.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling at The New School for Social Research. Ms. Sakopoulos’ interests include cognitive optimization and the integration of cutting-edge pharmacological psychedelic compounds and psychological interventions for an effective understanding of treatment interventions in psychopathologies. Her ongoing research in the Psychedelics Humanities Laboratory is the industrialization of psychedelics through social science collaboration with psychological, anthropological, and economic perspectives, along with primary source interviews with global thought leaders in the space.
Sujit Thomas, PhD, is an anthropologist of science, medicine, and technology with expertise in North America and Europe. He is a Visiting Scholar at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at UCLA and teaches in the Departments of Anthropology and Experimental Humanities at New York University. His book project, The Open Brain: Repair and Enhancement in the Age of Plasticity, is an ethnography of neuroscientists, psychiatrists, patients, and drug users in New York City, London, and Oxford. It focuses on the revival in the neurosciences of marginalized cybernetic and psychedelic paradigms from the 1960s and its implications for our collective understanding of human consciousness and mental disorders. The Open Brain draws on two years of doctoral research funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, and the Global Research Initiative at NYU. Sujit is presently in the early stages of fieldwork among psychedelic scientists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, patients, and drug activists in Prague, Czechia. He is also co-editor of a forthcoming Special Issue of BioSocieties titled A Paradigm Shift in Psychiatry? Evaluating the Future of the Psychedelic Renaissance. Sujit earned his PhD in Anthropology from New York University in 2024. He also holds an M.Phil from the University of Oxford, where he read European History as a Rhodes Scholar and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Delhi.
LAB ALUMNI
Sapna Desai
Mitsu Puri