Pain: A Cultural History

 

When we think about pain, most of us think of doctors or medicine, but Javier Moscoso has a different perspective. As a professor of history and philosophy of science at the Institute of History at the Spanish National Research Council, he studies the cultural history of pain, and specifically how representations and even the experience of pain have changed over time. Equal parts philosophy and history, Moscoso invites us to see pain as a social experience that comes with moral and ethical dimensions as well.

(Note: Javier Moscoso visited WashIngton University in St. Louis as part of an exchange program hosted through the university's Center for the Humanities with the Spanish National Research Council's Center for Humanistic and Social Sciences. His visit was also sponsored by the university's Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.)

 

Credits:

Wikimedia Commons: lithograph by p.s. Wellcome
Freemusicarchive: chris zabriskiejohnny_ripper