Harvard Gazette: Long career in search of ‘how to improve the human condition’ | Medical anthropology pioneer Arthur Kleinman takes a bow
The Department of Anthropology at Harvard University is honored to share that Professor Arthur Kleinman recently celebrated his final lecture of 49 years of teaching at Harvard. The Harvard Gazette covered this momentous celebration in a story released just yesterday.
“A long career bridging medicine, social science, and the humanities has left Arthur Kleinman with one critical insight.
“Care, critically understood and practiced, matters most,” he told a packed lecture hall last week. “This is at the center of whatever claim I can make to wisdom and truth.”
Kleinman, M.A. ’74, a psychiatrist whose many titles include Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, plans to officially retire next year after a total of nearly 50 years at Harvard. But his work in the classroom ended Tuesday with the final meeting of his “Future of Medical Anthropology” seminar.
The occasion drew nearly 200 current and former students to Sever Hall, with dozens more joining via Zoom. Five former students also testified to Kleinman’s impact as a teacher, author, mentor, and moral anchor committed to building cross-cultural understanding and advancing well-being.”