Anthropology and Medicine

1 Unit · Graduate

This course will introduce students to key classic and contemporary scholarship in the anthropology of medicine to explore how empirical research can inform and enrich our understanding of moral issues in medicine. Organized around a series of core topics in bioethics (e.g. death and dying, reproductive technologies, organ transplantation, and disability), the course examines a range of theoretical frameworks and methodological strategies from the social sciences, with a particular emphasis on ethnographic and cross-cultural approaches. Students will learn how to interpret and assess anthropological research, as well as how to bring a social scientific perspective to bear on problems in medicine.