The Medicine and Its Objects Workshop (MIO) is a forum for critically thinking about the plurality of medicine, as a problem space, in relation to the diverse social and material worlds in which it takes animate shape and form. It considers the “objects” of medicine and health sciences—whether the objects of inquiry guiding knowledge production, objects of intervention directing therapeutic processes, institutional objects that constitute medical domains, or material objects that mediate interactions at the interplay of theory and practice.
MIO offers an intellectual space for participants to think together about what constitutes the “objects” of medicine, how these objects are mobilized in and through communities, bodies, policies, practices, and institutions, and the philosophical, theoretical, and grounded experiences of medicine and its objects as situated in embodied, socio-historical, and economic contexts.
As an interdisciplinary workshop, MIO draws together perspectives from various social scientific, biomedical, and humanistic disciplines with interests that coalesce around the social studies of medicine and allied health sciences. We welcome a variety of formats to foster an interdisciplinary community and exchange and offer experience in a range of academic genres.
Spring 2025 Schedule
Wednesday, March 26 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
Reverberations
Nida Paracha, UChicago PhD Student, Anthropology
Wednesday, April 2 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
The Neck of the Womb: Cervical Dysplasia, Psychosexual Stress, and How Women Experience Cervical Cancer Screening in Germany
Kelly Mulvaney, UChicago PhD Student, Anthropology
Wednesday, April 9 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
Legislating Reproductive Labor: Surrogacy in Contemporary India
Ritu Ghosh, UChicago PhD Student, Anthropology
Wednesday, April 16 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD – Hybrid Session
Title TBA (on Maternal-fetal Surgery and Reproductive Care Post-Dobbs)
Ashish Premkumar, MD/PhD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, UChicago
Wednesday, May 7 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
Before ADHD: Child Neurology and the MBD/Hyperkinesis Concept in Japan, 1960-2000
Kosuke Takaira UChicago PhD Student, History and Anthropology
Wednesday, May 14 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
Colonization of Mental Health
Shereen Abu Bader, UChicago PhD Candidate, Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
Wednesday, May 21 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
Prison Healthcare and Other Paradoxes
Harley Pomper, UChicago PhD Student, Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and Comparative Human Development
Wednesday, May 28 (4:30-6:00 PM) Location TBD
“We make no accessibility maps!” Negotiations of Access Audits and Everyday Advocacy in Southern China
Zihao Lin UChicago PhD Student, Comparative Human Development
Winter 2025 Schedule
Thursday, Jan 9 (4:30-6:00 PM) John Hope Franklin Room*
Is Cleaning Making You Sick? Labor Feminism, Domestic Workers, and Occupational Health
Maniza Ahmed, PhD Student, History, UChicago
*Special joint session with New Directions in American History Workshop
Wednesday, Feb 12 (4:30-6:00 PM) Saieh Hall 247
Therapeutic Sociality: Healing Psychosis Amongst Returned Ethiopian Domestic Workers
Eva Melstrom, UChicago Postdoctoral Fellow
Wednesday, Feb 19 (4:30-6:00 PM) Saieh Hall 247
An Ethnography of Mobile Elder Care Clinics in Kolkata and the Violence of Care
Deblina Dey, Fulbright Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar, DePaul University
Wednesday, March 12 (4:30-6:00 PM) Saieh Hall 247
Dissection Aesthetics: Opera’s Anatomical Theaters
Ty Bouque, PhD Student, UChicago Music History
Fall 2024 Schedule
Wednesday, October 30th (4:30-6:00 PM), Cobb Hall 107
Deciphering Air in Workplaces
Yuting Dong, Assistant Professor of East Asian History and the College
Wednesday, November 6th (4:30-6:00 PM), Cobb Hall 107
Trikafta Incorporated: Politics, Technics and Activism in the Brazilian Drug Access Policy
Lucas Nishida, Graduate Student, Anthropology
Wednesday, November 13th (4:30-6:00 PM), Cobb Hall 107
Becoming Accidented
Elif İrem Az, Post-doctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Wednesday, November 20th (4:30-6:00 PM), Cobb Hall 107
Peer Health Educators and College Health Promotion
Gracie Wilson, Graduate Student, Comparative Human Development
Wednesday, December 4th (4:30-6:00), Cobb Hall 107
Carework in the San Francisco Queer Community
Graham Steffen, Graduate Student, Comparative Human Development
Coordinators: Andy Archer and Fulden Arisan
Faculty Sponsors: Eugene Raikhel (Comparative Human Development) & Zhiying Ma (Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice)
Mailing List: To sign up for our mailing list and receive updates on forthcoming meetings, enter your email address here.
***For more information about the workshop, or if you need assistance in order to attend, please contact the coordinators Andy Archer (andyarcher@uchicago.edu) and Fulden Arisan (farisan@uchicago.edu).