Jonathan Sadowsky

Jonathan Sadowsky is the Theodore J. Castele Professor in the Department of History (College of Arts and Sciences) and a Professor in the Department of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University. He also holds an Associate Professorship in the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine. His scholarly work bridges the history of medicine, bioethics, and psychiatric epidemiology, with a focus on colonial mental health systems and the cultural history of depression.

His research spans the social construction of mental illness, ethical dimensions of psychiatric practice, and the intersection of colonialism and medical institutions. Key publications include Imperial Bedlam (1999) and Electroconvulsive Therapy in America (2016), alongside The Empire of Depression (2020), which has been translated into six languages.

Recent articles explore patient record ethics, historiographical shifts in depression studies, and colonial psychiatry’s legacy. His work appears in journals like Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry and Bulletin of the History of Medicine. As Associate Director of the Medicine, Society and Culture concentration, he integrates interdisciplinary approaches into medical education.