Semester:
Spring
Offered:
2022
Prof. Jean Comaroff
Weds. 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
TBD
This class examines the changing place of medicine in the long history of modernity. Focusing on key moments the birth of the clinic, the colonial encounter, the consolidation of medicine as profession, the age of genomics and biocapital, and the empire of global health it explores the distinctive role of medical knowledge and practice in the making of modernist persons, identities, economies, and political vocabularies. Readings are drawn from anthropology and the wider social sciences, with cases from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. The course is a mix of lecture and discussion.