Dr. Bregje van Eekelen received a EUR fellowship 135.000,- for her research Brainstorms: a Cultural History of a Knowledge Concept. This research implies a book length project on the rich but unknown history of the American concept of 'brainstorm' from 1894 to 1960. Until WWII, brainstorm was a nervous disorder epitomized by an abundance of ideas, and elaborated to describe irrational behavior in medical, legal, and economic domains. After 1938 brainstorming transformed into a positive process to garner new ideas, especially in military and industrial contexts, and was gradually institutionalized to the point of becoming common sense. The project investigates how having an uncontrolled flow of ideas moved from an object and pathology into a method to collectively increase productivity.
Bregje van Eekelen will receive the award at the Talent Day at Erasmus University on 19 February.