STS.330J / 21A.830J History and Anthropology of Medicine and Biology, Spring 2009
Name
sts-330j-spring-2009/contents/index.htm
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35.36 KB
Format
HTML
Checksum (MD5)
b8bb655cbca4174154c82bdfca3479c6
Author(s)
Jones, David
Helmreich, Stefan
Alternative Title
History and Anthropology of Medicine and Biology
Date Issued
June 2009
Abstract
This course explores recent historical and anthropological approaches to the study of life, in both medicine and biology. After grounding our conversation in accounts of natural history and medicine that predate the rise of biology as a discipline, we explore modes of theorizing historical and contemporary bioscience. Drawing on the work of historian William Coleman, we examine the forms, functions, and transformations of biological and medical objects of study. Along the way we treat the history of heredity, molecular biology, race, medicine in the colonies and the metropole, and bioeconomic exchange. We read anthropological literature on old and new forms of biopower, at scales from the molecular to the organismic to the global. The course includes readings from the HASTS Common Exam List. The aim of this seminar is to train students to be participants in scholarly debates in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences about the nature of life, the body, and biomedicine.
Subjects
historical medicine
medieval dissection
gender
visible human project
genealogies
genome
biological kinship
biology of race
race and disease
emerging diseases
human relationship with animals
reproductive technologies
therapeutics
bioprospecting
climate change
environmental technology
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program
Terms of Use
Persistent DSpace Link
