Postdoctoral Fellows

I am a Chilean scholar and museum practitioner, committed to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue within the humanities. My academic journey reflects this commitment, culminating in a Ph.D. in Cultural History from Concordia University in 2023. Prior to this, I obtained an MA in Cultural Studies (2014) and a BA in History (2009), both from the University of Chile. My formal education has been further enriched by participating in international internships at the University of Barcelona (2023), the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin (2017), and El Colegio de México in Mexico City (2012). Alongside my academic pursuits, I have worked extensively as a researcher specializing in heritage materials and as a curator for various museum exhibitions.

Rooted in the tenets of cultural history, my research identifies current and problematic colonial narratives, aiming to trace their cultural origins. By doing so, I aim to unveil the culturally constructed nature of Western epistemologies, facilitating the integration of non-Western perspectives into our understanding of everyday practices such as collecting, care, and healing. These interests align closely with my role as a postdoctoral researcher at the SSoM. By critically examining the Maude Abbott Museum collection, I seek to provide new insights into the historical, cultural, and bioethical significance of human and biological remains within museum contexts.

Coming soon

PhD (Archaeology and History of Art), Koç University
Certificate (Narrative Medicine), Columbia University, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Certificate (Ethics in Health Sciences & Research Methodology in Health Sciences), Harvard Medical School and Koç University School of Medicine
MA, Istanbul Technical University, Taşkışla School of Architecture
BA, McGill University

Healthcare architecture, hospitals, neurology, neuroscience, social history, architecture of research institutes, architectural history, Ottoman history, Anatolian civilizations, Public Archaeology, nationalism and the built environment, health and environmental humanities, medical humanities, Turkish history, medical museums, public health

Coming soon

Felix E. Rietmann is SNSF Ambition Fellow at the Chair of Medical Humanities at the University of Fribourg. His research explores the material and visual culture of medicine with a special interest in the history of child health. He holds an MSc from Imperial College London, an MD from Charité-Berlin and a PhD from Princeton University.

History of Modern Medicine and Public Health; History of Health and Illness in Childhood; Film and Medicine; Literature and Medicine; Material and Visual Culture of Medicine

F. Rietmann, “Raising a well-grown child: Popular periodicals and the cultural history of child health in the early nineteenth century,” KulturPoetik [cultural poetics] 22, no. 2 (2022). https://www.vr-elibrary.de/journal/kult

F. Rietmann, “Von Systemanalyse zu Familiennarrativ: Kleinkindpsychiatrie in Lausanne,” in “Das Problem Kind: Zur Geschichte der Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert,” edited by Urs Germann, Urs Hafner, and Mirjam Janett, Itinera. Supplément de la Revue suisse d'histoire (Fall 2022). https://schwabe.ch/das-problem-kind-978-3-7965-4618-1

F. Rietmann, “No Escape from Fleck”, Isis 109, no. 1 (2018): 91-94. https://doi.org/10.1086/697181

F. Rietmann, M. Schildmann, C. Arni, D.T. Cook, D. Giuriato, N. Göhlsdorf, and W. Muigai, “Knowledge of childhood: Materiality, text, and the history of science - an interdisciplinary round table discussion”, The British Journal for the History of Science 50, no. 1 (2017): 111-141. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000708741700005X

F. Rietmann, “Visualiser l’esprit de l’enfant : une généalogie de l’image en pédopsychiatrie“, Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence 64, no. 7 (2016): 473–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neurenf.2016.07.001.

My research explores the social and political contexts in which technological change takes place in medicine, with a focus on the major shifts that occurred in twentieth century surgical practice. My current projects examine how new surgical technologies affect patients’ experiences of medical care and how political policies influence surgical practice.