This seminar will explore how the practice of medicine has been shaped by different conceptions of the human body: as enemy, as object, and as friend. Each of these conceptions of the body brings with it a distinct way of understanding medical practice: as a hostile encounter with foreign invaders or rebellious body parts, as a technique of mapping and manipulating objects in motion, and as a means of befriending estranged flesh. What do each of these conceptions imply for how we understand what it means to practice medicine well? 

Led by Lydia Dugdale (Yale School of Medicine) and Brett McCarty (Duke Divinity School)