Dr Taline Garibian

I am an historian of medicine and sciences. I received my PhD from the University of Lausanne and the University Jean Jaurès of Toulouse in 2017. My dissertation retraces the history of sexology in French-speaking Switzerland, from 1890 to 1970 and examines the way the sciences of sex and sexuality became a medical speciality during the 20th century. In 2017, I joined the University of Oxford to work on military expertise and assessments of breaches of laws of war committed during the First World War. My current project focuses on medical expertise on violence and atrocities done during the Second World War.

Research Interests

In my current project, funded by the British Academy, I examine how modern forensic science shaped twentieth-century perceptions of war violence and genocide. Located at the crossroads of the history of medicine and the history of mass violence, it examines the role of forensic scientists in the assessment of war atrocities during and in the aftermath of the Second World War. Forensic pathologists worked not only on victims’ identification but also carried out autopsies and closely examined medical experiments and mass killing techniques. While the use of forensic expertise is common in mass crimes, less is known about the first implementations of such techniques, and the political and scientific issues they raised.