Bridging Medical Sciences and the Humanities and Social Sciences VIII: Body, History, and Image — Welcoming Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama (History of Medicine, Harvard University) for "The Unknown History of Medicine Hidden in Images"

June 25, 2018

As part of our effort to bridge the humanities, social sciences, and medical sciences, we are pleased to welcome Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama,

who has taught the history of medicine at Harvard University for many years. Professor Kuriyama is a world-renowned authority on the social scientific study of medicine. In his book The Expressiveness of

the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine, he depicted the mutually distinct conceptions of the body underlying ancient Greek and ancient Chinese medicine,

and in his book "Rekishi no Naka no Yamai to Igaku" (Disease and Medicine in History), he elucidated when the Japanese people began to suffer

from stiff shoulders. Furthermore, in his edited volume "Kindai Nihon no Shintai Kankaku" (Bodily Sensibility in Modern Japan), he analyzed the discontinuities

and continuities in bodily sensations brought about by modernity through the lens of the permeation of the discourse on "stress" in modern Japan, and in "Chikoku no Tanjo—Kindai Nihon ni

okeru Jikan Ishiki no Keisei" (The Birth of Tardiness: The Formation of Time Consciousness in Modern Japan), he explored the historical origins of Japanese diligence. In recent years,

he has been developing research using innovative methodologies to explore how history can be questioned and retold in the age of

big data by using a databank of images.

On this occasion, he will instruct us on new methods of historical inquiry that connect the body with images and visuals,

and we will have comments from Professor Naoki Ikegami,

a leader in the study of Japanese medical policy history.

This event is free and open to all, and you are welcome to forward this announcement. As we will provide materials (diagrams) in advance,

those who wish to attend are asked to contact Junko Kitanaka at kitanaka@flet.keio.ac.jp . The lecture will be given primarily in Japanese,

but English speakers are also welcome.

Shigehisa Kuriyama received his A.B. degree from Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and

Civilizations in 1977 and an A.M. degree in 1978. After completing acupuncture studies in Tokyo, he

entered Harvard's Department of the History of Science, which awarded him a Ph.D. in 1986. He joined

the Harvard faculty as Reischauer Professor in 2005 after previously working at the University of New

Hampshire, Emory University, and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto,

Japan. Kuriyama's research explores broad philosophical issues (being and time, representations and

reality, knowing and feeling) through the lens of specific topics in comparative medical history (Japan,

China, and Europe). His book, The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and

Chinese Medicine (Zone, 1999), received the 2001 William H. Welch Medal of the American Association

for the History of Medicine, and has been translated into Chinese, Greek, Spanish, and Korean. His

recent work includes studies on the history of distraction, the imagination of strings in the experience

of presence, the transformation of money into a palpable humor in Edo Japan, the nature of

hiddenness in traditional Chinese medicine, and the web of connections binding ginseng, opium, tea,

silver, and MSG. Kuriyama has also been actively engaged in expanding the horizons of teaching and

scholarly communication through the creative use of digital technologies both at Harvard and at other

universities in the US and abroad.

This symposium is organized by the Global Research Center of Logic and Sensibility at Keio University

and is funded by JSPS Kakenhi 16KT0123.