Julie Catel

Julie comes from Tours, located in the Loire Valley, the land of cheese, wine and castles! She graduated with a B.A in English studies at the Université of Tours in 2017. She then obtained a professional B.A. in Corporate Communications at the IUT of Tours in 2018. Her studies in communications enabled her to take her first steps in the world of academic research as she conducted research while she was an intern at the National Federation of the French Mutuality. Her research focused on the struggle of social enterprises to assert their values and identity in a capitalist market that markets health as a commodity. She then moved on to an M.A in Cultural Studies during which she conducted research on advertisements for psychotropic drugs published in the U.S.A between 1949 and 1969. Her research focuses on the instrumentalization of psychotropic drugs as panoptic means of surveillance that is meant to be literally ingested and internalized by consumers. Her research demonstrates that, in the aftermath of WWII, psychotropic drugs enabled the ruling class to diffuse hegemonic discourses, especially discourses regarding the self and ideals of citizenship. During her M.A. she also founded, with two of her classmates, a research group for students she named ACEPHALE in tribute to the French philosopher George Bataille.