Bodies, Diseases, and Medicine in the Middle East

Catalog description

Surveys the history of medicine in the Middle East from the early modern period to the present. Covers major topics regarding bodies, diseases, and medical institutions within the framework of developments in regional and global history. How did medicine and knowledge about diseases and bodies change political and social conditions? How did people imagine health, life, sexuality, and the environment? Scholars have often analyzed history of medicine in Middle Eastern societies either in relation to Islamic culture in the early modern period or in relation to Westernization for the modern period. This course challenges these fixed paradigms, focusing on the mobility of bacteria, bodies, and medical methods among various communities across time.