The Cultural History of Medicine: A Seminar Series hosted by the Department of History, Goldsmiths College, with funding from the Wellcome Trust (October 2006 – May 2007)

In recent years, there have been innovative methodological developments in cultural history, in particular concerning the relationship between philosophy, cultural theory and historical practice. In addition, there have been advances in the historical understanding of several fields of medical knowledge, including Chinese medicine, Indian ayurvedics and psychiatry. We believe there is a need to consider the intersection of these two streams of scholarship, and thus to explore anew the boundaries of the ‘cultural history of medicine’. While recent scholarship in this field has tended to look at the social and experiential aspects of health and illness, we believe there is room to extend research in this field to include the history of ideas, of ‘mentalities’, and their intersection with medical thought and practice.

This Seminar Series integrates recent developments in the Cultural History of Medicine, which we understand to mean the relationship between the history of medicine and ‘mentalities’. We examine how medicine has meshed with changing systems of beliefs and ideas, and the social and professional organisation of knowledge. The series explores the nature and limits of medical knowledge in historical and cultural perspectives, and the ways in which medicine contested mentalities at the same time as expressing them.

Our aim is to foster innovative research that defines and challenges the limits of the field. Our invited speakers are drawn from different disciplines, across various Western and non-Western contexts and from the medieval to the modern period. The Department of History at Goldsmiths College has a committed teaching and research interest in medical history, the history of ideas and cultural history.

Registration required:

No

Free:

Yes