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Instructors: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Monika Class
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.512
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: ELC 512
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Contents:
How have the practices of dissection changed the understanding of human bodies?
In this course, students will develop a historical understanding of anatomy and of the practice of dissection in culture and as culture. The course aims at the defamiliarisation of bodies as “natural entities.” In this spirit, the course traces the way in which the knowledge of human anatomy has grown and changed over time and how the knowledge and practice of dissection relates to the representations and significance of human bodies in British and transnational material culture.
Derived from Roman “anatomia,” anatomy means “cutting up.” Dissection had long been forbidden until medical faculties gradually began to offer public demonstrations of dissected bodies in the 14th century. Over the centuries the need for dead bodies for dissection increased and led to changes in legislation, notably the Anatomy Act 1832.
The course examines relationships of bodies and rituals, artefacts and objects, and textual practices covering aspects such as funerals and tombs, the professionalisation of medicine as well as the sexualisation and racialisation of human bodies. Students will critically assess the relation of dissection with power including imperialism.
Recommended reading list:
Bynum, William F. The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008. Print.
Additional information:
In the podcast "Bodies," Professor Alice Roberts traces how human knowledge of anatomy has grown and changed over time and how this has in turn affected our understanding of who we are:
http://https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000rc4x
Digital teaching:
The course will be conducted in an online format (via the Learning Management System called JGU-LMS Moodle in asynchronic and synchronic weekly seminars):
https://lms.uni-mainz.de/moodle/login/index.php
If you have registered for the course, please go to Graduate Seminar 512 Cultural Anatomy on JGU-LMS Moodle, which is where you will find all announcements, information and materials for the course including a central forum for questions and answers regarding the course organisation.
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