HSSC5310 - Body Histories

Early scholarship on the history of the body emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, largely spearheaded by gender and discourse theorists who saw the human body as a useful way to think about culture, language, and performativity. Soon thereafter, historians insisted on the need for a more material approach to the subject. Since both human and non-human bodies occupy a central place in the history of science, technology, medicine, this course will delve into works that seek to tell the history of these fields through body history. In recent years, the most cutting-edge scholarship in body history can be found in race, gender, and disability studies, which will be a focus of this seminar.