Lectures
- 1. Introduction to course
- 2. Introduction to basic issues
- 3. "Irrational" beliefs in disease causation and treatment
- 4. "Irrational" beliefs (cont)
- 5. Symbolic healing and harming
- 6. The cultural construction of disease
- 7. Theoretical frames
- 8. Meaning, medicine, and illness
- 9. The institution(s) of medicine I
- 10. The institution(s) of medicine II
- 11. The institution(s) of medicine III
- 12. The institution(s) of medicine IV
- 13. The institution(s) of medicine V
- 14. The institution(s) of medicine VI
- 15. The institution(s) of medicine VII
- 16. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context I
- 17. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context II
- 18. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context III
- 19. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context IV
- 20. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context V
- 21. Stigma, responsibility, and blame
- 22. The challenge of chronic illness
- 23. New reproductive technologies
Medical Anthropology
Course Summary
This course is based on 21A.215 Medical Anthropology: Culture, Society, and Ethics in Disease and Health, Fall 2008 made available by Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
This course looks at medicine from a cross-cultural perspective, focusing on the human, as opposed to biological, side of things. Students learn how to analyze various kinds of medical practice as cultural systems. Particular emphasis is placed on Western (bio-) medicine; students examine how biomedicine constructs disease, health, body, and mind, and how it articulates with other institutions, national and international.
Reading Material
1. AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of BlameFarmer, Paul. AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248397.
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2. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520075375.
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3. Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry
Lock, M., A. Young, and A. Cambrosio. Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780521655682.
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4. Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines
MacClancy, Jeremy. Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226500133.
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5. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation
Franklin, Sarah, and Helena Ragone. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780812215847.
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