Visiting Assistant Professor Research Spotlight: Claire Bubb
Where did you get a monkey in Rome, and how much would it have cost you? During this past semester at ISAW I have been engaging with questions like these while laying out my new book project on the practice of dissection in antiquity. The dissection of animals was central to the development of the dominant medical theories to emerge from classical antiquity, and I am collecting evidence for an understanding of the actual practice of the science during its heyday in the Roman Empire. The heart of my project involves a textual analysis of Galen’s Anatomical Procedures—a unique guide to animal dissection from the 2nd century A.D. and the longest surviving writing on anatomy from Graeco-Roman writers—but it has been a particularly exciting endeavor because it has also drawn my research into a variety of unexpected directions: from the economics of the animal trade to the details of book production and distribution to the rich literature stemming from the Arabic translations and compendia of Greek anatomy. It has even taken me beyond the Ancient World altogether, in a foray to 16th century Europe, where Vesalius and the medical humanists’ reception of ancient texts can shed light on the anatomical practices they facilitated.
This summer, in addition to continued work on the book, I am also revising a project on links between Aristotle’s theories of dreams and memory and the physiological processes that underlie them. At 6 months my new daughter is now old enough that I can engage with theories of sleep without being too oppressed by its lack!