Ido Hartogsohn was a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology & Society (STS) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government during the 2017-2018 academic year. His current project is an extension of his doctoral research, which examined the ways in which the sociocultural landscape of mid-twentieth century America shaped the reception of psychedelics into American drug research and culture. By presenting several examples of non-pharmacological shaping of drug effects and contrasting these with select cases from the emerging discourse around media addiction and avoidance, Ido’s current research aims at a new understanding of the ways in which imaginaries shape the ethics, use and abuse of psychoactive drugs and digital media.

Prior to his PhD research, Ido has worked as a journalist, writing for various national and international venues on topics ranging from technology and culture to spirituality. In addition to founding and serving as an editor of the Israeli psychedelic magazine Lapsychonaut, Ido  organized the first Israeli conference on Psychedelics, Altered Minds (2017), and has long been involved in activism for the resumption of psychedelic research. In the years 2016-2017 Ido taught two courses on internet sociology and drug sociology at Bar Ilan University in Israel. He is currently completing his book project American Trip: How Set and Setting Shaped the American Psychedelic Experience. His book Technomystica (Hebrew) was published in 2009.

Publications:

Hartogsohn, Ido. “Constructing Drug Effects: A History of Set and Setting.” Drug Science, Policy and Law 3 (January 2017): 2050324516683325.

Hartogsohn, Ido. “Set and Setting, Psychedelics and the Placebo Response: An Extra-Pharmacological Perspective on Psychopharmacology.” Journal of Psychopharmacology 30, no. 12 (December 1, 2016): 1259–67.

Hartogsohn, Ido. “Psychedelic Society Revisited: On Reducing Valves, Reality Tunnels and The Question of Psychedelic Culture.” Edited by Robert Dickins and Andy Roberts. Psychdelic Press 2015, no. IV (August 2015): 83–99.