Professor Emily Martin

Event details

Lecture title: “The pharmaceutical person”

Date: 15 March 2007. 5.15pm

Venue: Faculty Room South, David Hume Tower, George Square

Lecture abstract

The central exhibit in the newly opened Wellcome wing of the British Museum is ‘Cradle to grave', a 40-foot table displaying in black net fabric the 14,000 pills taken by a British man and woman over their lifetime.

To understand the recent centrality of pharmaceuticals in everyday life, I trace the historical development of personhood in relation to psychotropic drugs over the last few decades in the US .

‘Pills' or, more accurately, ‘tablets' and ‘capsules', are described as products of manufacturing, as means of enhancing personal capacities and as objects in exhibits. In particular, I analyze the underside of pills—their ‘side' effects—in relation to fears and desires characteristic of contemporary Euro-American culture”.

Emily Martin is Professor of Anthropology at New York University