NES 4652

Bodies and Diseases in the Middle East (1500-2000)

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

Bodies and Diseases in the Middle East (1500-2000) will explore the history of medicine and science in the Middle East from early modern period to the present. It covers the main topics and questions regarding bodies, diseases, and medical institutions within the framework of major historical developments in world and region's history. The course investigates how medicine and knowledge about diseases and bodies changed political and social conditions as well as how the latter defined and transformed the ways in which people imagined health, life, and environment. Scholars have often analyzed history of medicine in the Middle Eastern societies either in relation to Islamic culture in the early modern period or in relation to more recent Westernization. This course seeks to challenge these fixed paradigms and shed light onto questions and research agendas that will unearth the encounters, connections and mobility of bacteria, bodies, and medical methods among various communities by locating the history of medical knowledge and practices of the Middle East within global history.  It will highlight that the history of medicine in the colonial world itself is varied and wide ranging, investigating how medical missions intersected with civilizing missions, how colonial discourses were used to explain disease prevalence, and the relationship between the metropole and colony in propagating certain medical theories and practices. The course seeks to facilitate student engagement with various primary and secondary sources and new technologies to teach both historiographical methods and the content of the history of medicine in the Middle East.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS)
Course Attribute (CU-ITL)

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