Lykke de la Cour

Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies » Faculty & Staff » Faculty Profiles

Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Health & Society (HESO) and Interdisciplinary Social Studies (ISS)

Office: 319 Founders College
Phone: 416 736 2100 Ext: 33303
Email: ldlcour@yorku.ca

Lykke de la Cour teaches in the Health and Society and Interdisciplinary Social Science programs in the Department of Social Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University. Her publications and research interests focus on: historical processes associated with ableism and disablement, biomedicalization and socio-legal regulation, particularly with respect to eugenics and the intersectional formation of gendered, racialized, classed, disabled and transgressive sexual identities.

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Lykke de la Cour’s Ph.D. is in History from the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching interests focus on health, disability, and early-twentieth century eugenics and biogenetics, particularly processes associated with disablement, biomedicalization, and socio-legal regulation and the formation of gendered, racialized, classed, disabled and transgressive sexual identities. Her manuscript, From ‘Moron’ to ‘Maladjusted’: Eugenics, Gender and Dis/Abled Citizenship, 1930s-1960s, is under contract with UBC Press and she has an article on eugenics, race, and first-wave feminism forthcoming in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice. She has published and presented papers on topics such as patient case file methodology and women patients’ perspectives of psychiatric institutionalization. Her current research focusses on an examination of how the medical colonization of Aboriginal populations was extended through psychiatric institutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s. She teaches SOSC 2005 6.0: Body, Power and Society, SOSC 3005 3.0 Disabling Race/Racing Disability, SOSC 3920 Disability and Society, and SOSC SOSC 4144 Engaging Health in Community: Advanced Health Research in the Field.

Degrees

PhD, History, University of Toronto
MA, History, University of Toronto
BA, History and Women’s Studies, University of Toronto

Current Research Projects

Psychiatric Institutionalization as an Expansion of the Medical Colonization of Aboriginal populations in Ontario,1940s-1970s

Description:

The objective of this project is to examine the institutionalization of Indigenous men and women in mental hospitals, in Ontario, from the 1940s to the 1970s, as an extension of medical colonization practices in the post-war period. Although numerous studies have highlighted how residential schools, juvenile training facilities, and child-welfare policies functioned as significant locations for colonial assimilationist strategies and the regulation of Aboriginal populations, there has been no research on how mental hospitals also figured into this colonial project, both in terms of limiting the reproduction of Aboriginal populations and "rehabilitating" Indigenous men and women to white, bourgeois, heteronormative standards of behaviour. Hence, this project breaks new ground with respect to both the history of medical colonization and its extension through psychiatric post-war colonization practices.

Role: Principle investigator

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Book Chapters

Publication

Year

de la Cour, Lykke and Geoff Reaume. “Patient Perspectives in Psychiatric Case Files.” In On the Case: Explorations in Social History, Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinson, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998) , 242-265.

1998

de la Cour, Lykke, Cecilia Morgan, and Mariana Valverde. “Gender and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Canada.” In Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada, Allan Greer and Ian Radforth, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992) , 163- 191.

1992

Professional Journal Articles

Publication

Year

de la Cour, Lykke. “Eugenics, Race and Canada’s First-Wave Feminists: Dis/Abling the Debates” Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice.

2016

de la Cour, Lykke. “`She thinks this is the Queen’s Castle’: Women Patients’ Perceptions of an Ontario Psychiatric Hospital.” Health and Place 3 (2) 1997: 131-141.

1997

Sheinin, Rose and Lykke de la Cour.“The Ontario Medical College for Women, 1883-1906: Lessons from Gender Separatism in Medical Education.” Canadian Woman Studies 7 (1986): 73-77; reprinted in: Andrea Medovarski and Brenda Cranney, eds. Canadian Woman Studies: An Introductory Reader. (Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 2006) , 75-82; Nuzhat Amin, et al., eds. Canadian Woman Studies: An Introductory Reader. (Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 1999) , 71-78; Veronica Strong-Boag and Anita Clair Fellman, eds. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women’s History, 2nd edition. (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1991) , 206-214; Marianne Gosztonyi Ainley, ed. Despite the Odds: Essays on Canadian Women and Science. (Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1990) , 112-21.

1990

de la Cour, Lykke. “The Other Side of Psychology: Women Psychologists in Toronto from 1920 to 1945,” Canadian Woman Studies 8 (1987): 44-46.

1987

Conference Papers

Publication

Year

“Dis/Abling the ‘Mother of the Race’: The Dialiectic of Racialization and Disablement in First-Wave Feminism,” Decoloniality Conference, National Women’s Studies Association, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, November 2016 (submitted February 5, 2016; accepted April 25, 2016).

2016

“The ‘Defective’ Domestic: Eugenics, Feebleminded Women and Domestic Work in Ontario, Canada,. Disability and Work Panel, at “Inequalities: Politics, Policy, and the Past,” 39th Annual Meeting, Social Science History Association, Toronto, November 6-9, 2014.

2014

“Re-centering the Dis/Abled Subject and the Subject of Dis/Ability: Canadian Eugenics Revisited,” joint panel of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Disability Studies Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, May 28, 2014.

2014

“Constituting Worth through Gendered Citizenship: Eugenics, Disability and First–Wave Feminism,” Disability, Gender and Worth panel, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of Toronto, May 23, 2014.

2014

“`She can see no reason why she was brought here”: Twentieth-Century Female Patient Views on Mental Illness,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Buffalo, New York, 1996.

1996

“`She can see no reason why she was brought here”: Twentieth-Century Female Patient Views on Mental Illness,” Canadian Historical Association, Learneds Society Conference, Montreal, Quebec, 1994.

1994

“Gender History and the History of Medicine and Science,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Learneds Society Conference, Calgary, Alberta, 1993.

1993

“The Tale of the Patient: Methodological Questions in Recovering A Social History of Patients in Psychiatric Institutions in the Early Twentieth Century,” Symposium on Madness, University College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, 1991.

1991

“Preliminary Findings of the Report on the Status of Women as Graduate Students in History Programmes in Canada,” Committee on Women’s History, Canadian Historical Association, Learneds Societies Conference, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, 1990.

1990

“Engendering Psychology: Women’s Impact on Psychology in Toronto from 1920 to 1945,” Canadian Psychological Association, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1989.

1989

“Female Professionalism versus Maternal Feminism: The Uneasy Union in the Early Years of Women’s College Hospital, 1911 to 1935,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Learneds Societies Conference, Quebec, Quebec, 1989.

1989

“Eugenics and the Campaign to Institutionalize the Feebleminded: A Discussion on Gender and Mental Health in Early Twentieth-Century Canada,” The Luna Circle: A Study Group on the History of Mental Health in Canada, University of Toronto, Toronto, 1987.

1987

“Reproduction and Eugenic Ideology in Early Twentieth-Century Canada,” Gender, Law and Social Control Seminar, Women’s Issues Caucus, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, 1987.

1987

“The History of the Ontario Medical College for Women, 1883-1906,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Learneds Societies Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1986.

1986

Research Reports

Publication

Year

Enhancing Communication and Community: A Proactive Healthcare Archives Assistant Policy, Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, 1993.

1993

Highlights of the Preliminary Report on the Status of Women as Graduate Students in History in Canada, with Karen Dubinsky, Nancy Forestall, Mary-Ellen Kelm, Lynn Marks and Cecilia Morgan, Canadian Historical Association, Newsletter 17 (1991): 1 & 8.

1991

Forthcoming

Publication

Year

de la Cour, Lykke. From ‘Moron’ to ‘Maladjusted’: Eugenics, Gender and Dis/Abled Citizenship in Ontario, 1930s-1960.

Current Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/SOSC1009 6.0	M	Introduction to Social Science (ESL)	ONLN
Winter 2025	AP/SOSC1000 6.0	M	Introduction to Social Science	ONLN
Fall/Winter 2024	AP/SOSC2110 6.0	A	A Critical Study of Health and Society	ONCA

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Summer 2025	AP/SOSC1000 6.0	A	Introduction to Social Science	ONLN

Degrees

PhD, History, University of Toronto
MA, History, University of Toronto
BA, History and Women’s Studies, University of Toronto

Current Research Projects

Psychiatric Institutionalization as an Expansion of the Medical Colonization of Aboriginal populations in Ontario,1940s-1970s

Description:

Project Type:

Role:

Start Date:

Month:

Year:

End Date:

Month:

Year:

All Publications

Book Chapters

Publication

Year

1998

1992

Professional Journal Articles

Publication

Year

de la Cour, Lykke. “Eugenics, Race and Canada’s First-Wave Feminists: Dis/Abling the Debates” Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice.

2016

de la Cour, Lykke. “`She thinks this is the Queen’s Castle’: Women Patients’ Perceptions of an Ontario Psychiatric Hospital.” Health and Place 3 (2) 1997: 131-141.

1997

1990

de la Cour, Lykke. “The Other Side of Psychology: Women Psychologists in Toronto from 1920 to 1945,” Canadian Woman Studies 8 (1987): 44-46.

1987

Conference Papers

Publication

Year

2016

2014

“`She can see no reason why she was brought here”: Twentieth-Century Female Patient Views on Mental Illness,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Buffalo, New York, 1996.

1996

1994

“Gender History and the History of Medicine and Science,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Learneds Society Conference, Calgary, Alberta, 1993.

1993

1991

1990

“Engendering Psychology: Women’s Impact on Psychology in Toronto from 1920 to 1945,” Canadian Psychological Association, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1989.

1989

1987

“The History of the Ontario Medical College for Women, 1883-1906,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Learneds Societies Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1986.

1986

Research Reports

Publication

Year

Enhancing Communication and Community: A Proactive Healthcare Archives Assistant Policy, Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, 1993.

1993

1991

Forthcoming

Publication

Year

de la Cour, Lykke. From ‘Moron’ to ‘Maladjusted’: Eugenics, Gender and Dis/Abled Citizenship in Ontario, 1930s-1960.

Current Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/SOSC1009 6.0	M	Introduction to Social Science (ESL)	ONLN
Winter 2025	AP/SOSC1000 6.0	M	Introduction to Social Science	ONLN
Fall/Winter 2024	AP/SOSC2110 6.0	A	A Critical Study of Health and Society	ONCA

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Summer 2025	AP/SOSC1000 6.0	A	Introduction to Social Science	ONLN