Events

Past Event

Claire Bubb - Vulnerable Bodies: Roman Medical Research and the Enslaved

October 22, 2024
4:10 PM - 6:00 PM
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Hamilton Hall (Room 613), Columbia University, 1130 Amsterdam Avenue, New York

Event Description

Roman doctors periodically required bodies, both living and dead, for medical demonstration and research. There were many vulnerable bodies in Roman society--animals, the enslaved, the impoverished, the outcast, and the conquered--and this talk will explore which bodies doctors seem to have favored for which purposes. As it turns out, their use of the enslaved appears to have been surprisingly curtailed. The talk will therefore also address Galen's perspectives on slavery and the enslaved and explore the potential boundaries to the exploitation of this particularly vulnerable population.

Event Speaker

Claire Bubb, Assistant Professor of Classical Literature and Science at New York University

Event Information

Open to Columbia University ID holders. Contact Holly Axford at [email protected] to receive the Zoom link. For more information, please visit the event webpage

Hosted by the Department of Classics at Columbia University.