How would you like to be identified?
Harvard University, History of Science

I primarily work on
Medicine and Health

About Me
Shireen Hamza is a doctoral student in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her dissertation project investigates the historical formation of the medical system known as Graeco-Arabic or Islamic Medicine as it moved from the Middle East to South Asia, where it is now practiced. Known today as Unani tibb, this tradition is one of the five traditional medicines sanctioned by the government of India, and is utilized by millions of patients. Her project focuses on the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, when Islamic polities were established in South Asia, in order to understand how this system developed as it moved between different languages, regions and climates. As part of her secondary field in Critical Media Practice, she explores questions of gender and historical memory with contemporary practitioners of Unani medicine in India through sound and moving image.

Broadly, she is interested in the history of medicine, gender and sexuality in the Islamicate and Indian Ocean Worlds. She is also a managing editor for the Ottoman History Podcast, the writer and producer of Ventricles, a Podcast of the Science, Religion, and Culture program. She has served as the managing editor of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

1. The Urge To Gloss: Multilingualism In The Making Of Ṭibb

1. Articulations And Disarticulations: Translation, Medicine, And Knowledge In The Premodern World, Session II - 25 Jul, 2019