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Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on October 12, 2007
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkm074
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

After Death/After-'Life': The Social History of Medicine in Post-Postmodernity

Roger Cooter*

* Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK. E-mail: r.cooter{at}ucl.ac.uk


  Abstract

Summary Well supported and institutionalised, the social history of medicine thrives. Its research agenda is infinitely expandable, and its humanist sentiments continue to touch emotional cords. Politically and intellectually, however, it is sterile. In a material and intellectual world that is radically different from the one in which it came into being, the social history of medicine has lost its capacity seriously to engage. This paper suggests that medico-centric historians not only have the expertise to re-engage with the contemporary bio-centric world, but that they have need to do so, and, moreover, every reason to take to the task enthusiastically. Crucial to moving on is understanding and seriously engaging with the moral-political and epistemological landscapes for medicine and its historiography, past and present.

Keywords: historiography; Foucault; biomedicine


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