Humboldt University Berlin

This course focuses on the therapeutic relationship between physician/surgeon and patient, at a time of major socio-economic change, political turmoil, and advent of the clinical gaze in medicine. After a first phase of contextualization, the course is organized in thematic subsections, in which text pertaining to these questions as well as some historical sources is read and discussed. The course examines the economic dimension of medicine and the impact it has on patients’ agency in the therapeutic relationship in a context of competition between surgeons, physicians, and other health practitioners. The course also focuses on the question of pain management and the sensory experience of surgery before the advent of anesthesia. Finally, there is a focus on the doctor/patient relationship in institutional contexts such as hospitals and prisons, with a deeper look at the case of military surgery. The colonial context, while not at the heart of this course, is also included. The question of power dynamics between physician and patients, including questions of in particular of class, race, and gender are present throughout.

This course explores philosophical reflections on the structure and purpose of the university and the role of philosophy within that institution as put forward by German philosophers in the 19th century, while also providing a critical perspective on the subsequent history of the university through the 20th century until today. Students read key texts by philosophers such as Kant, Schelling, Fichte, von Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Heine, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, to trace how ideas relating to university reform changed and were implemented in the course of the last two centuries, also in light of the most recent European university reform: the Bologna Process in 1999.