Tuesday 12 May 2026 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Auditorium at Pembroke College
About
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Auditorium Foyer (18:30-19:30), and those interested in signing up for dinner at Cote Brasserie should complete this form as soon as possible: https://forms.gle/Q3aEtEymszqjWGh37
Lecture abstract:
This is an ethnographic and clinical reflection on the pandemic in Iran, not just as an event, but as a diagnostic exposure of a deeper pre-existing condition akin to immunodeficiency; i.e., the weakening of the social body’s immune system due to decades long overlapping psychopolitical ruptures. Focusing on the chronicity of lethal conditions, I situate the lived experience of the pandemic in people’s prior perception of having been at war (military, economic, psychological, moral) and a sense of incremental death (of bodies, infrastructure, futures, dignity). Death, slow and violent, metaphorical and material, prevails in an emerging discourse of keramat-e ensani (dignity) and zendegi-ye ma’mouli (ordinary life) and points to a systemic assault on dignity and on ordinary life. Justice-seeking in this context of material and moral fragility and fatigue has both ethical and clinical implications, manifest not only in catastrophic pandemic outcomes or rising rates of suicide and chronic illnesses, but also in a radical demand for the right to an ordinary life with dignity. I follow this diagnosis by asking what future possibilities of healing are imaginable, underscoring the restoration of dignity as a prerequisite for healing, justice, and any liveable future.
Our Speaker:
Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, and the author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press). She is the Director of the MA in Medical Anthropology and Mental Health at SOAS University and a 2021-2022 Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). Dr. Behrouzan received her PhD in History and Anthropology of Science and Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
About the lecture:
The Strathern Lecture was established in 2011 to celebrate the achievements of Dame Marilyn Strathern FBA, who was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology (1993–2008) and Mistress of Girton College (1998–2009) and whose writings have had a profound impact across anthropology and many other disciplines. She has received the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute alongside numerous other awards, honours, and honorary degrees. Dame Strathern has given many years of devoted service to the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge, and the lecture is a mark of the esteem in which she continues to be held.
The Strathern Lecture is organised annually by the student-led Cambridge University Social Anthropology Society (CUSAS).
Bio:
Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, and the author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press). She is the Director of the MA in Medical Anthropology and Mental Health at SOAS University and a 2021-2022 Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). Dr. Behrouzan received her PhD in History and Anthropology of Science and Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).