Virtual Event: Rupa Marya and Raj Patel

Harvard Book Store and Politics and Prose welcome RUPA MARYA—associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and founder of the Do No Harm Collective—and writer, film-maker, and political economist RAJ PATEL for a discussion of their latest, co-authored book, Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Justice. They will be joined in conversation by renowned attorney and civil rights activist WALTER RILEY.

Ticketing

There are three ticket options available for this event.

Admission Ticket - $35.25: Includes one admission link and one hardcover copy of Inflamed. US shipping also included. Books will be shipped to ticket-holders following the event. Please note: we are unable to ship internationally.

Pay-What-You-Can Ticket: Includes one admission link. We suggest a $5 donation to support Harvard Book Store's staff and our virtual event series during these difficult times. Thank you for your support!

Free RSVP Ticket: Includes one admission link.

About Inflamed

The Covid pandemic and the shocking racial disparities in its impact. The surge in inflammatory illnesses such as gastrointestinal disorders and asthma. Mass uprisings around the world in response to systemic racism and violence. Rising numbers of climate refugees. Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed.

Boldly original, Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body—our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, this groundbreaking work illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. Inflammation is connected to the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the diversity of the microbes living inside us, which regulate everything from our brain’s development to our immune system’s functioning. It’s connected to the number of traumatic events we experienced as children and to the traumas endured by our ancestors. It’s connected not only to access to health care but to the very models of health that physicians practice.

Raj Patel, the renowned political economist and New York Times bestselling author of The Value of Nothing, teams up with the physician Rupa Marya to offer a radical new cure: the deep medicine of decolonization. Decolonizing heals what has been divided, reestablishing our relationships with the Earth and one another. Combining the latest scientific research and scholarship on globalization with the stories of Marya’s work with patients in marginalized communities, activist passion, and the wisdom of Indigenous groups, Inflamed points the way toward a deep medicine that has the potential to heal not only our bodies, but the world.

Praise for Inflamed

"Science and medicine are often treated as fields that are subtracted from social movements, separate from the struggle for power that billions of human beings are embroiled in and abstracted from the material conditions around us. Luckily for us, Rupa Marya and Raj Patel are out here making these connections and encouraging us to see these as processes we all must take ownership of as we fight to have control of our surroundings. This book is on fire." —Boots Riley, frontperson for The Coup and writer/director of Sorry to Bother You

"A work of exhilarating scope and relevance to this infected moment in the body politic. Inflamed mixes medicine, argument, and metaphor into a post-pandemic poultice: reading it is the first step in the deep medicine it prescribes. What a rare and powerful experience to feel a book in your very body." —Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

"A critique of the wreckage of capitalism and colonialism for our time—beautifully written, storytelling at its best. This book can change your life." —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States