Spring 2025

View in MyPlan View in Time Schedule

Meeting:

TTh 10:30am - 12:20pm / GUG 220

SLN:

10294

Section Type:

Lecture

Instructor:

Jenna Grant

COUNTS TOWARD MAGH

Syllabus Description (from Canvas):

word doc version of syllabus here.

ANTH 215 Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health

Spring 2025

Lectures: Tuesday / Thursday 10:30am – 12:20pm

GUG 220

Instructor

Professor Jenna Grant (she series)

jmgrant@uw.edu

office: Denny 136

office hours: Tuesdays 2-3:30pm or by appointment

Discussion section leaders (in alphabetical order)

Tess Chen (she/her)

tchen01@uw.edu

sections: AG, AI

office: Denny TA loft (top floor of Denny Hall)

office hours: Tuesdays, 1:00-3:00 pm

Michelle Henry (she/her/hers)

msmhenry@uw.edu

sections: AD, AE

Please make an appointment here: https://calendly.com/msmhenry-uw/30min

office: Denny TA loft (top floor of Denny Hall) or zoom by appointment

office hours: Tuesdays, 12:30-2:30 pm

Edward Stuart (he/him)

esiv@uw.edu

sections: AA, AC

office: Denny TA loft (top floor of Denny Hall)

office hours: Wednesdays, 12:00-2:00 pm

Communication

Have a course-related question? Post it to the Community Forum: Canvas > Discussions > Community Forum.

Have a personal question? Email or visit the office hours of your TA or the Instructor.

Note: Professor Grant will respond to email related to this course on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (after class). Please do not expect an instant response to your email. She does not typically respond to email at night or over the weekend.

Have a technology-related question? Contact UW-IT: help@uw.edu; 206-221-5000

https://itconnect.uw.edu/

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:

Define key theoretical and methodological frameworks in medical anthropology.
Analyze how health and medical practices are shaped by (and also shape) political, economic, biological, and cultural life.
Explain interrelationships between individual and collective health.
Demonstrate orally and in writing 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.

Please do not use your phones or computers for anything other than accessing course materials and taking notes during class.

Reading and class material

Required books

Yates, Doerr, Emily. 2024. Mal-Nutrition: Maternal health science and the reproduction of harm. Oakland: University of California Press. [Open-access, available through UC Press and through UW Libraries. Also available for purchase in paper and e-book through University Book Store or your local independent booksellers.]
Hamdy, Sherine and Coleman Nye. 2017. Lissa: A story about medical promise, friendship, and revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [Available in paper and eBooks for purchase through University Book Store or your local independent booksellers. Also available through UW Libraries in a pinch, but please note that access is limited: only one user at a time. Do not count on this!]

Articles are available via UW Libraries (be sure you are logged in with your netid) and on Canvas: through links on the Itinerary page of each Module and as pdfs in Modules and Files.

Audiovisual media are embedded or linked in the Canvas site for this course.

Late policy

We accept late work for up to 2 days. There is a roughly 5% penalty for each day it is late. (For BYI, 0.5 points deducted per day late. For the short paper and zine, 1.25 points deducted per day late.)

We do not consider extensions for illness requested within 24 hours of the due date.

We do not accept late work 2 days after the due date.

‘Bring your image’ (BYI) discussion posts on Canvas (30%): You will write five 300-word discussion posts in which you “bring an image” that you create or find that brings forward some important aspect of the readings for the week. Each post is worth six points (6 points x 5 posts = 30 points total). Here are guidelines for comprehensive posts:

2 points: restate, in your own words, the main argument of each reading for the week

2 points: define at least one important concept for the week, use proper citation (Author Date: pg # if available)

2 points: explain why you chose your image and how it relates to a theme or concept from one of our week’s readings; provide full citation for your image (who made the image, where you found it, date if possible).

Short paper (25%): DUE: 2 May at 11:59 pm on Canvas.

You will write a five-page paper (double-spaced, 12-point font) analyzing one of the historias in Mal-nutrition. Here are some possibilities, but you are not required to write about one of these.

Nutrition
Scientific knowledges How do research practices (experiments, objectives, methods, conclusions, etc.) shape understandings?
Gender, in relation to race, development, or health
Violence, its meanings in Guatemala, the U.S., and the Americas
Reproduction
Migration

Your paper must advance an argument, that is, an original claim that is supported by evidence from the text. You must relate your argument to at least one other text that we have read in class (in addition to Mal-nutrition) and at least one text from outside of class. (HINT: look at texts that Yates-Doerr cites in the chapter you are focusing on, or the endnotes for the chapter; look at ‘Further reading’ for this course.) Details will be distributed two weeks before the paper is due.

Purpose

To demonstrate critical understanding of some aspect of medicine, gender, violence, reproduction, migration, or nutrition.

To hone your skills in communicating complex ideas in writing.

Grading Criteria (out of 25 points total)

Argument (7 points): How clearly stated and well-argued is your claim? Hint: this should be stated in the beginning and revisited again at the end.

Analysis of text (8 points): How well do you describe and analyze material in Mal-nutrition?

Relation to other conversations (7 points): How well do you situate your argument and analysis in relation to other scholarly conversations? One text from class, and one we did not read in class (it could be a work mentioned in this class; material from your other classes; work from the Mal-Nutrition’s bibliography, etc.). The outside source must be a peer-reviewed scholarly text.

Style (3 points): including grammar, sentence structure, references, and formatting.

Zine (25%): DUE 5 June in class, if hardcopy, or at 9am on Canvas, if digital. Make a zine that explores one major concept from this class and a health issue that you care about. Think of the zine as an opportunity to experiment with representation and knowledge production. The zine emerged out of subculture, activist, and anarchist circles as a way to make knowledge less opaque, more experimental, and open-ended. Details will be distributed three weeks before the zine is due.

Contributions to lecture and section (20%):

Throughout the quarter there will be short, low-stakes exercises in lecture and section. These are graded on a check mark basis (as in, did you do them or not?) and include entry and exit tickets, in-class writing, and group work. You receive 20 points for completing these exercises. You will receive fewer points depending on how many you do not complete. There are no make-ups. This is a simple technique for checking how you are understanding course materials and sharing your knowledge and experience with peers.

Grading and Evaluation

‘Bring your image’ discussion posts (5 x 6 points) 30%

Short paper (2 May) 25%

Zine (5 June) 25%

Contributions to lecture and section 20%

ANTH 215 Introduction to Medical Anthropology & Global Health:

Course Schedule

*Course readings and schedule subject to change*

*please read material before class on the date listed*

Week 1: Introductions & orientations

Tues / 1 Apr – Introductions to the course and to each other

Welcome to ANTH 215. We are looking forward to learning together this quarter. In the first half of class, we will review the syllabus in detail; explain learning goals, assignments, and evaluation; clarify expectations about communication; and address any questions you might have right off the bat.

In the second half of class, we will discuss ethnography as method and a product of anthropological research. Most anthropologists write. More and more, anthropologists are using different kinds of writing, such as blog posts and zines, and multimodal work--drawings, photographs, cell-phone videos, podcasts--to share their thinking. In this class, we mostly read texts, but we will also have a section on "graphic medicine".

In-class: Bonanno, Letizia. 2020-2021. Loops of struggle. Otherwise 1: ¡Struggles!

Thurs / 3 Apr – Our key analytics: bodies and systems

With the help of anthropologist Vanessa Agard-Jones and historian M Murphy, we explore ways of understanding how individual bodies are shaped by broader systems, and why these analytics are important for understanding health and disease in the contemporary world.

Thursday is Murphy’s “What can’t a body do?” and next Tuesday is Agard-Jones’s “Bodies in the system”. We will do in-class exercises to shake up our thinking about bodies, knowledges, infrastructures, and environments.

Read

Murphy, M. 2017. What can't a body do? catalyst: feminism, theory, technoscience 3(1)

https://michellemurphy.net/

Week 2: bodies (whose bodies?) and systems; COVID case study

Agard-Jones, Vanessa. 2013. Bodies in the system. small axe 42: 182-192.

Xiuhtecutli, Nezahualcoyotl and Annie Shattuck. 2021. Crisis politics and US farm labor: health justice and Florida farmworkers amid a pandemic. The Journal of Peasant Studies 48(1): 73-98.

Geranios, Nicholas K. 2020. Virus is taking big toll on farm county in Washington state. Associated Press, 22 June.

IN-CLASS [segment] Bayoumi, Soha. 2023. COVID comics: Decentering white narratives in graphic medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. National Library of Medicine, 30 March. 01:02:05.

Assignment

Bring Your Image (BYI) #1

Weeks 3, 4 & 5: Mal-Nutrition: Maternal health science and the reproduction of harm

Mal-Nutrition is an ethnography of a maternal-child global health intervention—"the first 1000 days”. Using ethnographic and historical methods, the author traces scientific, community, and corporate investments in this program that centers around maternal and child nutrition.

Tues / 15 Apr – Historias – development and cruelty

Yates-Doerr, Mal-Nutrition, Introduction ‘Historias: Fetal development as global development’ and Chapter 1 ‘Reproducing cruelty’ (pp. 1-54).

Thurs / 17 Apr – Historias – biology and poverty

Yates-Doerr, Mal-Nutrition, Chapter 2 ‘Bio-logics of poverty (pp. 55-79)

We will discuss the paper assignment.

Assignment

Bring Your Image (BYI) #2

Tues / 22 Apr – Historias – how is knowledge made and shared?

Yates-Doerr, Mal-Nutrition, Your choice: Chapter 3 ‘Proxy (pp. 80-105) OR Chapter 4 'Circles of in/equality (pp. 106-130). Or read both!

Thurs / 24 Apr – Historias – gender, violence, and windows of opportunity

Yates-Doerr, Mal-Nutrition, Chapter 5 ‘Gender violence and the violence of gender’ (pp. 131-152) OR Chapter 6 ‘Window of opportunity’ (pp. 153-174). Or read both!

Assignment

Bring Your Image (BYI) #3

Tues / 29 Apr - Mal-Nutrition author Emily Yates-Doerr in person

Yates-Doerr, Mal-Nutrition, Chapter 7 ‘Historias of co-laboration’ and Conclusion (pp. 175-211).

Thurs / 1 May – No class. Paper due Friday 5/2 on Canvas before 11:59pm.

*Friday 5/2 there are NO regular discussion sections. TAs will hold drop-in office hours during the regular time of your section if you want last minute conversation about your paper.*

Benton, Adia and Sa'ed Atshan. 2016. “Even war has rules”: On medical neutrality and legitimate non-violence. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 40(2): 151–158.
Dewachi, Omar. 2015. Blurred lines: Warfare and health care. Medicine Anthropology Theory 2(3).

This week we prepare for Lissa with readings about comics and exploring recent work in graphic medicine.

McCloud, Scott. 1993. Understanding comics: The invisible art. Harper Perennial. (pdf linked on Canvas > Modules > Week 8 > Itinerary)
Explore the website, org

Williams, Ian. 2020. Comics and the iconography of illness. In Graphic medicine manifesto. MK Czerwiec et al, eds. Pp. 115-142. University Park: Penn State University Press.

Assignment

Bring Your Image (BYI) #5. Analyze a comic of your choice using one McCloud’s or Williams’s ideas about comic grammar or iconography.

Further reading and listening (optional)

Czerwiec, MK et al. 2015. Graphic medicine manifesto. University Park: Penn State University Press
Graphic medicine podcast episodes:

Noujaim, Jehane. 2015. The square. Video. New York: City Drive Films & Netflix.

Hamdy & Nye, Lissa, first half

Appendix I: Timeline of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, pp. 251-263

Hamdy & Nye, Lissa, second half.

Appendix II: Creating Lissa: sections I and II, ‘Key concepts’ and ‘Collaborations’, pp. 264-276.

Your zines are due Thursday 6/5 before class.

Be a 2-minute teacher! Present an image from your zine for 5 points of extra credit!

Wrap up the course. Do evaluations.

Be a 2-minute teacher! Present an image from your zine for 5 points of extra credit!

Wrap up the course. Do evaluations.

Resources (linked)

Anthropology, STS

Anthropology Now

BioSocieties

Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience

Cultural Anthropology

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

Medical Anthropology Quarterly

Medicine Anthropology Theory (MAT)

Medicine, Biological Science, Global Health

Social Science & Medicine

Websites

Sapiens

Society for Medical Anthropology

Documenting Medicine (Duke U)

Global Health Film

Graphic Medicine

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Data Visualizations

IRIN

Model view culture

Somatosphere

Accessibility: We strive to support equal access to learning for all students in this class. If you have a disability or think you might need accommodations for note-taking or any other aspect of your coursework, do not hesitate to let us know. The Disability Resources for Students (DRS) Office will facilitate an interactive process for establishing accommodations: 448 Schmitz, Box 355839, (206) 543-8924, (TTY) 543-8925, uwdss@u.washington.edu.

Generative AI: ChatGPT is clearly a technology, and it can fall into the category of "health" depending on use and users. We will learn together what we are able to do, and what we are not able to do with ChatGPT. I prefer that you do not use generative AI for your BYI posts and your exploratory ethnography. However, you are permitted to use AI tools to assist you reading peer-reviewed articles, gathering additional information, writing drafts, and revising your writing. However, do not just copy text from an AI tool without reading it! Also know that the text you enter into an AI tool is not private--it will be used, perhaps sold, by the developer and potentially other companies to modify the tool and possibly other uses that are not explicit. This means that it is not okay to enter personal information about others (for example, if you interview someone for your research paper), or other people's intellectual property (writing of the professor or the TA). Importantly, you are expected to be transparent. This means that you:

1) include both your original writing and the AI-version so that we may see both and determine if the answer that you submitted reflects your original thought.

2) include a statement at the end of your assignment describing which AI tool you used and how you used it. For example:

“I used X AI tool to suggest about 50% of my bibliography and to provide revision assistance. I edited the AI-produced content for accuracy and style, and I take full responsibility for the content.” (thanks to Abie Flaxman for this language).

“I used Grammarly to give me feedback on my sentence structure of my BYI post this week. English is my 3rd language and I like using AI as a proofreading tool.” (thanks to Katy Pearce for this language)

I read the book/article and I didn’t fully understand it, so I asked ChatGPT to give me other examples which helped my understanding.” (thanks to Katy Pearce for this language)

“I did not understand a term in the reading, and I asked ChatGPT to explain it to me.” (thanks to Katy Pearce for this language)

To help you document your use, consider using track changes so you know what is written by AI and what is written by you (e.g., an idea; quotes; full paragraphs, etc.); use timestamps so you know how long you worked on an assignment; take notes on how and where you used AI.

Reflect upon whether you are using a generative AI tool ethically, effectively, and safely.

Did you use the tool as allowed? Did you share others’ intellectual property? Are there bias concerns?
Was the learning objective achieved? Did the tool save time or add time to my work?
Did I input anything protected into the tool that should not be given away? (thanks to UW School of Public Health Aug 2023 Instructor AI Training for some of this language)

I am happy to talk in class or office hours about your learning and your use of generative AI. I, too, am learning these technologies and welcome the conversation.

Plagiarism: Don’t do it! For further information, please see the university policy on academic honesty https://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/AcademicResponsibility.pdf. The purpose of this course is to help students become critical and independent thinkers. Original thoughts and ideas will be highly valued, and students are expected to treat the work of others similarly.

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).

Anthropology Academic Services Director: Laura Todd, letodd@uw.edu

Anthropology Academic Counselor: Kendall Vinyard, kvin96@uw.edu

Graduate Program Advisor: Kendall Nelson, agp-advisor@uw.edu

Anthropology Librarian: Anne Davis, adavey@uw.edu, Odegaard Undergraduate Library

Odegaard Writing and Research Center: One-on-one help with writing, a lot of great documents about writing—structure, style, argument, etc. https://depts.washington.edu/owrcweb/wordpress

Student Life: Support in areas of life outside the classroom: http://studentlife.washington.edu/

Counseling Center: Free counseling resources: http://counseling.uw.edu/

Husky HelpLine, 24/7 mental health support: 206-616-7777 and https://wellbeing.uw.edu/huskyhelpline

Crisis Connections, mental health support in the Seattle area: 866-427-4747

Title IX makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sex and gender are Civil Rights offenses subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, etc. If you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, there are resources:

LiveWell Confidential Advocates: http://livewell.uw.edu/survivor-support-advocacy/

http://www.washington.edu/sexualassault (UW)

http://police.uw.edu/aboutus/divisions/operations/criminalinvestigations/victimadvocacy (UW) http://knowyourix.org/basics (non-UW)

http://survjustice.org/about-us/ (non-UW)

Catalog Description:

Explores influences of global processes on health of U.S. and other societies from a social-justice perspective. Emphasizes inter-relationships between cultural, environmental, social-economic, political, and medical systems that contribute to health status, outcomes, policies, and healthcare delivery. Focuses on health disparities within and between societies and communities around the world.

Department Requirements Met:

Medical Anthropology & Global Health Option

GE Requirements Met:

Diversity (DIV)

Social Sciences (SSc)

Credits:

5.0

Status:

Active

Last updated:

April 22, 2025 - 9:34 am

ANTH 215 A: Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health

ANTH 215 Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health

Spring 2025

Instructor

Discussion section leaders (in alphabetical order)

Communication

Course description

The learning outcomes of this course are:

Course format

Reading and class material

Required books

Articles are available via UW Libraries (be sure you are logged in with your netid) and on Canvas: through links on the Itinerary page of each Module and as pdfs in Modules and Files.

Late policy

Purpose

Grading and Evaluation

ANTH 215 Introduction to Medical Anthropology & Global Health:

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introductions & orientations

Tues / 1 Apr – Introductions to the course and to each other

Thurs / 3 Apr – Our key analytics: bodies and systems

Read

Week 2: bodies (whose bodies?) and systems; COVID case study

Further reading (optional)

Weeks 3, 4 & 5: Mal-Nutrition: Maternal health science and the reproduction of harm

Tues / 15 Apr – Historias – development and cruelty

Thurs / 17 Apr – Historias – biology and poverty

Tues / 22 Apr – Historias – how is knowledge made and shared?

Thurs / 24 Apr – Historias – gender, violence, and windows of opportunity

Tues / 29 Apr - Mal-Nutrition author Emily Yates-Doerr in person

Thurs / 1 May – No class. Paper due Friday 5/2 on Canvas before 11:59pm.

Further reading and listening (optional)

Further reading (optional)

View

Read

Further viewing & listening (optional)

Week 8: graphic medicine

Your zines are due Thursday 6/5 before class.