Bridging Medicine and the Humanities and Social Sciences 36: A Lecture by Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama of Harvard University

May 28, 2024

This lecture will feature Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama of Harvard University. He is the author of the classic work The Expressiveness of the Body on the comparative history of medicine in ancient China and Greece, and has since published a series of stimulating studies, including a novel interpretation of Sugita Genpaku's "Kaitai Shinsho," the history of acupuncture, moxibustion, and Kampo medicine, and the history of stress and happiness. He currently serves as the Director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, where he is dedicated to mentoring young scholars from Japan and the United States. In this lecture, he will speak from his perspective on the history of imagination in the medical sciences, with commentary from Professor Kaito Tohata and Professor Yuna Umeda.

"The Forgetting of Time and the Birth of Modern Medical Sciences"

Abstract: The birth of modern medical sciences has traditionally been narrated around "scientific discoveries." This lecture will reconsider the transition from traditional to modern medical sciences from the overlooked perspective of "the forgetting of time."

Shigehisa Kuriyama (Harvard University)

Commentators

Kaito Tohata (Shirokane Takanawa Counseling Room)

Yuna Umeda (Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital)

Profile:

Shigehisa Kuriyama

Shigehisa Kuriyama

Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History

Director, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

He is a professor of cultural history in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History, and the head of the humanities division at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

His research explores a wide range of philosophical issues from the perspective of the comparative cultural history of Japan, China, and Europe. His book, "The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine" (Zone, 1999), was awarded the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine in 2001 and has been translated into Chinese, Greek, Spanish, and Korean.

Professor Kuriyama's articles and edited volumes explore topics such as the history of punctuality, cognition and expression, the metaphysics of muscle power, the nature of money, and the imaginative dominion of long-forgotten waste products.

He is currently conducting research on the themes of happiness and presence, connecting them to (1) the scenery of a fish market in early 19th-century Edo, (2) the evocation of conversational expression in Shikitei Sanba's Ukiyoburo, (3) Thomas Edison's phonograph, and (4) Hans Holbein's portrait "The Ambassadors."

Shigehisa Kuriyama has taught at Harvard University as Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History since 2005. Before Harvard, he served for eleven years on the faculty of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. His research explores broad philosophical questions through the lens of comparative cultural history and the history of medicine. His best-known book is The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (ZONE Books, 1999), which has been translated in Chinese, Greek, Spanish, and Korean. His recent work includes a co-edited volume, Fluid matter(s) (Australian National University Press, 2020), which makes creative use of digital media to leverage some of the unique possibilities of online publication. He also has a keen and longstanding interest in the theory and practice of live communication and has conducted workshops on the art of presentation at many universities around the world.

Kaito Tohata

Clinical psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist, and certified public psychologist. His specialties are psychoanalysis and medical anthropology. He is the director of the Shirokane Takanawa Counseling Room. He is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Human Relations, Keio University, and a Guest Professor at Ritsumeikan University. He serves as a councilor, director, and Vice-President of the Association of Japanese Clinical Psychology. His recent book is "Futsu no Sodan."

Yuna Umeda

After majoring in cultural anthropology in graduate school, she became a psychiatrist and is engaged in clinical psychiatry. She is a psychiatrist at the Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital. Her interests include cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, psychopathology, and social work.

Moderator: Junko Kitanaka (Graduate School of Human Relations, Keio University)

Contact: Junko Kitanaka junko.kitanaka@keio.jp < mailto:junko.kitanaka@keio.jp >

*This seminar is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) JP21H05174.