Dominik Merdes studied pharmacy, literature, and the history of science. From 2013 until 2018, he performed doctoral research at TU Braunschweig under the supervision of Professor Bettina Wahrig. Besides his academic research, he worked in several community pharmacies, one of the places from which his critique unfolded. In his thesis titled 'The Production of a Pharmacon—A Cartography of Kala-Azar and the Antimonials', he explores the emergence of the disease kala-azar in Assam and of the antimonials, a group of drugs that were early products of modern chemotherapy. His cartographic analysis combines the concept of machinic assemblage by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with feminist and postcolonial theories. He argues that antimonials and modern chemotherapy are not essentially 'European', but the product of a type of machinic assemblage, which comprises multiple agents and lives on the exploitation of peripheral spaces. In the frame of the joint research project Materialities of Medical Culture in/between Europe and East Asia, he continues to inquire the history of the construct of 'tropical medicine' and parasitological practices in southern China.
History and Materialisation of Drugs
History of Tropical Medicine
Feminist Critique of Scientific Knowledge Frames
Postcolonial Perspectives on the History of Pharmacy