Kristin Asdal was one of the lecturers at the PhD course «The more than human condition», which took place in December 2021.
Making links and drawing boundaries between human and animal bodies, human and animal health, have always been crucial in establishing a politics of life. Science and politics are key locations where human and animal health are aligned, separated, cared for and valued.
The PhD course explored and experimented with different methods and analytical frameworks for investigating the ‘more-than-human’ condition. ‘More-than-human’ encounters take many forms and call for different conceptual and empirical approaches. Where and to which actors, objects, practices, and procedures do we go to study valuations and care practices in science, health, and politics?
For more information, please see TIK9012 – The more-than-human condition: Valuations and care in immunology, biomedicine and politics - Universitetet i Oslo (uio.no)
In connection to the course, TIK welcomed renowned anthropologist Emily Martin from NYU, who in 1994 published the seminal book “Flexible Bodies: the role of immunity in America from polio to the age of Aids”, which showed how immunology needs to be understood in its historical and cultural contexts. In a hybrid format Martin discussed her book and how immunology looks today with biologists and immunologists Kjetill Sigurd Jakobsen, Finn-Eirik Johansen and Shou-Wang Qiao from the COMPARE project based at the University of Oslo.
Read more about that here.