Biocultural Anthropology: Critical Perspectives on Health & the Body

Undergraduate

This first-year seminar offers a comprehensive exploration of biocultural anthropology, a specialized branch of medical anthropology that integrates multiple perspectives on human health and well-being. Biocultural anthropologists and allied health scholars increasingly try to understand how large-scale political-economic processes affect local cultures and subsequently become embodied or "get under the skin." Students learn how the biocultural approach uniquely combines (1) human-environment-biology interactions, (2) evolutionary processes and their impact on contemporary health, and (3) the political, economic, and sociocultural influences of health outcomes, disease risk, and care for historically marginalized groups. We focus specifically on Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ lived experiences to understand why and how certain human beings have been depicted as non-human, vectors of disease, anti-bodies, and/or a problem for public health and biomedicine. Students engage in contemporary and historical moments to investigate "scientific truth” and "medical authority" and their impact on individuals who have been "Othered" by differences and the bio-cultural divide. Enrollment is limited to first-year students. SO TTh 11:35am-12:50pm