Dr. Kavita Sivaramakrishnan is Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences in the Department of History at Columbia University.

In this conversation, we will discuss Dr Sivaramakrishnan’s work on post-colonial modernization, health, and medical professionalization in India. She will trace the politics and making of a distinct medical specialty, cardiological therapeutics and its professionalization. This involved ideas, institutions, new partnerships and networks that were debated and projected, and involved the creation of therapeutic, political and public spaces. These ideas became closely identified with what it meant to be ‘modern’ for Indian practitioners, elite and policy makers. In the seminar Sivaramakrishnan will discuss the arc or Introduction of her new book (written with co-author David Jones) and a Chapter on the 5th World Congress of Cardiology (1966) in Delhi, and a growing public dialogue about heart disease in India.