Townsend Center Working Group in the History and Social Studies of Medicine and the Body
(Med Heads)
With Prof. Thomas Laqueur, I coordinate the Townsend Center Working Group in the History and Social Studies of Medicine and the Body, otherwise known as the "Med Heads," an interdisciplinary group of graduate students and faculty who meet once a month to discuss and critique a pre-circulated work-in-progress written by a member of the group. It provides an opportunity for graduate students and faculty to get feedback on dissertation chapters, conference papers, articles, etc. from colleagues in a wide range of disciplines, and for all members to find out more about what's being written right now in our own and other disciplines in the Bay Area. An interdisciplinary group is particularly crucial for discussions of the study of "the body," a popular and rapidly expanding new area, because so much of what is being written draws upon philosophy, literary studies, anthropology, history, science studies and other fields all at the same time.
After a several year hiatus, the Med Heads began to meet again five years ago under my initiative, drawing graduate students, faculty and visiting scholars from Berkeley, UCSF and other Bay Area universities. This past year, the group of approximately twenty-five regular attendees included scholars of history, anthropology, sociology, English, women's studies, Russian studies, art history, and public health and environmental science, policy and management.
Papers discussed included Berkeley History graduate student Kim Friedlander's “Hygiene for the People: Preventive Medicine and Physicians’ Relationship to the Public, 1875-1909”; Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management postdoc Alastair Iles' "Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Human Health: The Social and Cultural Aspects of Food and Water Diseases"; UC Presidents' Postoc Gabriela Soto Laveaga's "Citizenship, Nationality, and Steroid Hormones in Mexico (1971-1976)"; Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management Assistant Professor Kate O'Neill's "A Vital Fluid: Risk, Controversy and the Politics of Blood Donation in the Era of vCJD"; History graduate student Kaarin Michaelsen's "Professionals Abroad: Medical Women and India, 1870-1914;" and my "Technology and the Production of Gendered and Classed Subjects: Tampons in the Twentieth Century United States." Med Heads also had the pleasure this year of inviting Med Heads alumnus and current Assistant Professor at the University of California at Irvine, Doug Haynes, to share with the group his current work in progress, "A Question of Taste”: Policing the Racial Boundaries of the American Medical Association, 1847-1876." This year's meetings will begin with a visit from another alumna, Med Heads' original founder Catherine Kudlick, currently Professor at U.C. Davis, who will present her recent work in disability studies.
Scholars in the San Francisco Bay Area are encouraged to join Med Heads' email distribution list (email me at Lara at post.harvard.edu).