Medical Anthropology

4.0 credits

T his course is a deeper introduction to medical anthropology. It provides an overview of a broad range of key topics, theoretical approaches, and research methods in this rapidly expanding sub-field. Apart from exploring the medical systems of other cultures, we will reflect on biomedicine as a cultural artifact. How do patients and health professionals understand and experience states of health and illness? How is the body socially and culturally constructed? How do ideas, practices, and material artifacts of medicine shape our understandings of each other and ourselves as particular kinds of persons? What lies at the intersection of health, racism, poverty, and other social inequalities? How can we think of health care differently by looking at alternative visions of care in other places? Key topics covered include cultural interpretations of sickness and healing, social determinants of health, iatrogenesis, global epidemics, addiction, care, and the training of medical professionals. This course is meant to help students have a better grasp of the major concepts and theoretical approaches in medical anthropology, and enable students to interrogate their own beliefs and experiences of sickness and bodies, as well as the causes of human suffering and vulnerabilities.