Clifford Symposium 2010
Beyond Rx: Global Health
September 23-25, 2010
"Beyond Rx: Global Health," this year's Clifford Symposium, will explore the multifaceted nature of a topic that has gained growing salience across the world. Tapping into the College's academic strengths, the symposium events will engage with many of the stakeholders: medical practitioners, pharmaceutical companies, activists, scientists, artists, scholars, the media, NGOs, and patients. Through lectures, panel and roundtable discussions, performances, poster-sessions and workshops, the symposium will explore the primary concerns animating the field of global health and offer participants avenues to intervene in policy making at the local and global levels.
Central to our discussions is a paradox: Even as technological innovations have improved our chances of combating, and sometimes eradicating, diseases, steep inequalities prevail in health worldwide. Working across academic disciplines and from diverse locales we will explore the significance of this paradox. We seek to highlight how scientific, political, economic, and cultural concerns shape our understandings of health and illness as well as social relations at local, national, and global levels.
"Beyond Rx: Global Health" will be an interdisciplinary exploration of a complex and complicated topic, and a demonstration of the strengths of a liberal arts education. It will also permit our community to engage with a signature topic of our times.
The symposium is being organized by Susan Burch, Svea Closser and Sujata Moorti.