IEA

Fellowship from April to June 2011

Research projet:

"Integrity and Identity of the human body. Toward a History of Presence."

Why is there a history to medicine? It is generally assumed that the same biology that governed the body in fifth century BCE Greece, say, or second century CE China still governs our own bodies here and now. What explains, then, such distinctions as Greek medicine and Chinese medicine, traditional medicine and modern medicine? How can we understand the striking differences in the beliefs and practices of diverse medical periods and traditions, when we believe the body to be essentially one and unique? This is the most fundamental puzzle of medical history.

My project explores this puzzle specifically with respect to the history of medicine and the body in East Asia and Europe. My basic stance is that the diversity of medical history is not simply a matter of different ideas about the body-though these are important, of course-but also of different experiences of the body; that is, medicine in East Asia and Europe entailed not merely different ways of thinking, but different ways of perceiving and being. I am interested above all in probing these perceptual differences and the contexts that shaped them.

I first tried to illuminate the fundamental puzzle of medical history in The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese medicine (ZONE Books, 1999). Since the publication of that work, however, my understanding of the matter has evolved in numerous ways. In addition to a deeper understanding (I think) of the metaphysical foundations of the divergences that formed in classical antiquity, I now have some hypotheses about how these divergences played out later in history. I have been looking particularly at two issues.

The first is the relationship between medical and economic history. While there are obviously important ancient ties between gold and the imagination of life (one thinks, for example, of alchemy), the connection between money and the body takes on vastly greater resonance with the development of modern capitalism. Fully to comprehend the comparative history of the body, I now believe, we need to reflect on the comparative history of the imagination of money.

The second issue is the curious convergence of modern Western with traditional East Asian intuitions of the body. This convergence has generally passed unnoticed; indeed, Chinese medicine is most often cast as the paradigm of "otherness," the prime example of what Western medicine is not. While the existence of striking differences in undeniable, my thesis is that in certain key respects, Western medicine, in becoming more modern, paradoxically become more Chinese. (I attach a recent article that begins to develop this argument.)

The two issues are related: the convergence of intuitions about the body is complexly entwined with the empire of capital. It is especially this complex entwinement that I hope to pursue in discussion with colleagues and other visitors at the IEA.

Biographical elements: 

Born in Marugame, Japan, Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama studied for two years at Phillips Exeter Academy and two years in France before attending Harvard College. After obtaining his A.B., he trained as an acupuncturist for three years in Tokyo, and returned to Harvard where he received a Ph.D. in History of Science in 1986. His professional appointments (the Humanities Program at the University of New Hampshire; the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University; and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies) prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2005 have been notable for their explicit emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. His publications, for their part, have been marked by a consistent effort to probe broad philosophical issues through the prism of specific topics in comparative cultural history. He has also long been interested in techniques and styles of presenting knowledge. Professor Kuriyama’s The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (1999) received the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, and has been translated into Greek, Chinese and Spanish.

His current projects include studies on the relationship between money and the body in Edo era Japan and the history of presence. One project is about the history of the concept and experience of the tension that has long been regarded as a virtue (proof of vitality and presence in the world) and has now become a modern pathology, a sign of anxiety and root of all kinds of diseases. The second project highlights the relationship between money and body, and investigates how the change in social relations caused by the advent of market economy in the Edo period has affected not only the theory and practice of medicine, but the intimate experience of pain and disease. In 2005-2006, Professor Kuriyama has given numerous lectures on these topics in the U.S. as well as in China, Turkey, and Israel.

Personal webpage:http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~rijs/people/faculty/s_kuriyama.html