Scientific Bodies: The Poetics and Politics of Embodiment in the History of Science & Medicine

Catalog description

How have bodies been understood, represented, experimented on, used, and abused in the history of science and medicine? Considering the history of embodiment—the hands-on, tangible, multisensory aspects of scientific practice—from fifteenth century anatomy to colonial self-experimentation, racialized display, and more recent twenty-first century laboratory-based choreography, this course examines the complicated ways that western scientists have considered bodies—both their own and those of their often oppressed research subjects over hundreds of years. Focusing on the ongoing systemic inequalities baked into the colonial history of science and drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship from the history of medicine, anthropology, critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, and disability studies, students will think critically about the poetics and politics of experimentation, theorization, and scientific communication in American and European scientific research spaces. From the sights and smells of Vesalius’s anatomical theater to the Romantic creation of “human batteries,” and from intimate research conducted on women’s reproductive systems by male physicians to the use of DNA in determining Indigenous “belonging” over the last few decades, this class will make visible the human, embodied nature of fields that are often considered disembodied. This class will deal explicitly with colonial histories of bodily violence and loss revolving around racism, sexism, and disability and may be triggering to students—we will form a community agreement at the start of the semester.