Course description
This course is an introduction to medical anthropology and global health. It is not designed as a survey class, rather, we explore recent work in anthropology and related fields to learn about the interrelationships of bodies, knowledges, infrastructures, and environments in shaping health and disease. How does medicine, as an authoritative mode of knowledge and practice, shape what it is to have a body, to be healthy or not, to be human? How is the openness of the body to environmental, biological, and social harms--war, chemicals, terror, absence of health care--a political question? Why is infrastructure important to health care? We will address these questions together as we engage academic texts, web-based scholarship, and audiovisual media about the U.S., Guatemala, Egypt, and Iraq, among other sites.
The learning outcomes of this course are:
- describe ways that medical knowledge and practice shapes what it is to have a body, to be healthy or not, to be human
- analyze how health and medical practices are shaped by (and also shape) political, economic, and cultural life
- demonstrate understanding of what ethnography is as both a method and a product (book, audiovisual media)
Course format
This course meets in-person. There are two lectures and one discussion section per week. Contributions to lectures and discussions are part of your grade. Lectures are not recorded but Professor Grant will upload lecture slides to the Canvas site each week.
Required books
- Yates, Doerr, Emily. 2024. Mal-Nutrition: Maternal health science and the reproduction of harm. University of California Press.
- Hamdy, Sherine and Coleman Nye. 2017. Lissa: A story about medical promise, friendship, and revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Articles and audiovisual materials will be available through Canvas.
Requirements
Discussion posts on Canvas (40%)
Short paper (25%)
Visual essay (25%)
Contributions to lecture and section (10%)