Cultural, psychological, and biological aspects of the definitions, causes, symptoms, and treatment of illness. Comparative study of medical systems, practitioners, and patients.

Medical anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that brings interdisciplinary perspectives and field research methods to bear on problems of health, physical and psychic, and in between the two, wellbeing, illness and disease within and across contexts. In the contemporary world different systems of knowledge, philosophies and techniques of the self and the body, understandings of normality and pathology, illness and healing, are increasingly engaged in a dialogue with each other in the lives, on the bodies, and in the imagination of people. The terms of this dialogue are unequal and painful, yet they are also productive of new subjectivities and new voices. The experiential, field-based approach and core concepts of medical anthropology allow us to explore the ways in which ideas about the body and healing practices are culturally crafted and mediated in different places and times. As we consider the ethics of medical knowledge and practice, we will consider how medical technologies remake distinctions between nature and culture or what we consider to be ‘normal’ or ‘pathological.’ As we attend to diverse ways of medical knowing, in systems of medical knowledge other than the global bio-medical, we will also account for the political, economic and social forces that shape human lives, and we will reckon with the impact of colonialism. Injustices linked to class, gender, sexuality, and race, and ability are central to how we reckon with the disproportionate impacts of illness and renderings of health. We will learn to connect these impacts and renderings to people and families, including our own situated responses to the worlds that surround us.

Through this course, students will embark on a journey that spans continents and time periods, examining case studies from illness crises, pandemics, colonial and postcolonial wars, and humanitarian crises. We will delve into themes such as the politics of health interventions, the cultural significance of illness narratives, contrasting approaches to mental health, neurodiversity and the experience of madness and trauma, including understandings of illness and healing related to spirit possession, witchcraft, and religious cures; the commodification of medicine, and the biopolitics of the body. Along the way, students will engage with ethnographic texts, documentaries, and real-world examples to deepen their understanding of health as both a personal experience and a global phenomenon.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills