Medical Anthropology Colloquium

UCSF Medical Anthropology Colloquium - 2007/08

All seminars will be held at the Laurel Heights campus, room 474, Thursdays from 3:30 pm to 5 pm, unless otherwise noted.

March 6th, 2008
Lesley A. Sharp, PhD, Barnard College
From Animal to Artifice:  Transforming Bodies and Selves in the Experimental Realm of Human Organ Replacement

Anxieties over the scarcity of transplantable organs in the U.S. have inspired a range of experimental trajectories imagined as one day offering viable alternatives for patients in need.  Two such trajectories currently dominate the field of experimental science:  mechanical prototypes (where the heart defines an especially pronounced area of activity), and organs derived from hybrid animals (with porcine "donors" bearing the greatest promise). This talk will examine the significance of such themes as the transformation of human bodies, the meanings assigned to 'nature' versus 'artifice,' and the ethics of patient care as framed by the scientific imagination within two competing realms of experimental research.

April 24th, 2008 (PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE)
Luke Bergman, PhD,  UC Berkeley School of Public Health, NIAAA Postdoctoral Fellow
Dreamhouse: Life and Death in Detroit

May 8, 2008 (PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE)
Jennifer Liu, PhD Candidate, UCB/UCSF Joint Medical Program
Big Science and Traveling Bioethics: Stem Cell Research in Taiwan

May 15, 2008
Thurka Sangaramoorthy, PhD Candidate, UCB/UCSF Joint Medical Program
We All Have AIDS: Circulations of Numbers, People, and Power in HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention

May 22nd, 2008
Tanya Luhrman, PhD, Stanford
Chicago’s Netherworld: an Ethnography of Psychosis on the Streets

RESCHEDULING TO FALL
Emily Martin, PhD, Institute of the History of Production of Knowledge
Sleepless in America

The UCSF/UCB Medical Anthropology program and History of Health Sciences series are made possible with support from Culpeper Lecture funding.