Bacteria, Bodies, and Empires: Medicine and Healing in the Eastern Mediterranean (15th-21st c.)

Catalog description

Bacteria, Bodies, and Empires is a course about the history of medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean from the early modern period to the present. It addresses the major issues and questions concerning bodies, diseases, and medical institutions within the context of major historical developments in the world and region’s history. The course looks at how medicine, knowledge, and practices about diseases and bodies changed political and social conditions, as well as how socio-political changes defined and transformed people's perceptions of health, life, and the environment. Scholars have frequently examined the history of medicine in Eastern Mediterranean societies, either in relation to Islamic culture in the early modern period or, more recently, in relation to Westernization and modernization. By situating the history of medical knowledge and practices in the Eastern Mediterranean within global history, this course seeks to challenge these fixed paradigms and shed light on questions and research agendas that will unearth the encounters, connections, and mobility of bacteria, bodies, and medical methods among various communities.