As 289 SPR 12
As 289 SPR 12
As 289 SPR 12
the biological aspects of health and healing. Students learn how to analyze medical practice as a cultural system. With particular emphasis on Western biomedicine, students analyze the construction of disease, health, body and mind and the articulation of biomedicine with national and global institutions. The cases looked at include cases from various Western European countries and the United States, Southeast Asians in the US, Africa, Haiti and Brazil. Global connections, including the spread of Western biomedial models to developing countries and issues of epidemic and contagion in the context of global inequalities will be addressed. Prerequisites: A&S 100 or 105 Course requirements: This course is a reading- and discussion-intensive course. Preparation before class and cogent class discussion are essential for your success in the course. On average, there will be approximately 100 pages of reading per class meetingbut sometimes more. There will also be about six films, usually shown in the evening. You should plan on at least three to five hours of reading time outside of class. Often, but not always, there will be study questions to help you focus on important aspects of the reading. Some of the books may require more reading, but they are typically much easier to read than the articles. There will be three six-page papers throughout the term. In addition, you must prepare a reader response to at least one of the readings each week and place it on the courseweb on the forum provided. Required books: Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. ISBN: 9780374525644. Payer, Lynn. Medicine and Culture: Varieties of treatment in the United States, England, West Germany and France. Revised Edition. New York: Henry Holt, 1996. Farmer, Paul. AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248397. Irving Kirsch, MD. The Emperors New Drugs: Exploding the Anti-Depressant Myth. New York: Basic Books, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-465-02200-7 Kleinman, Arthur. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing & the Human Condition. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780465032044. Luhrmann, T. M. Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry. New York, NY: Knopf, 2000. ISBN: 9780679421917. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520075375.
Optional books: Hahn, Robert A. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780300068719. Brown, Peter J. Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. 1st ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1998. ISBN: 9781559347235. Lock, M., A. Young, and A. Cambrosio. Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780521655682. MacClancy, Jeremy. Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226500133. Franklin, Sarah, and Helena Ragone. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780812215847. Briggs, Charles and Mantini-Briggs, Clara. Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling during a Medical Nightmare. Berkeley: UC Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0520243889. Disability Statement: If you have a disability and may require accommodations or modifications in class instruction or course-related activities, please contact the Learning Support Center (LSC) staff who can arrange for reasonable accommodations for students who provide documentation of their disability/condition. If you are presently registered with the LSC and have requested accommodations through the LSC for this semester, please plan to meet with me as early as possible to discuss the best way to implement these accommodations in this class. The LSC is located on the third floor of the Seeley Mudd library or call 517-629-0825. Regular attendance in all classes is expected. Every absence from class is inevitably a lossusually one which can never be made up. A student has the responsibility to inform his or her faculty member, whenever possible in advance, of an absence due to serious or prolonged illness, and verification of absences due to emergency reasons, may be obtained from the Office of Residential Life. As an academic community, Albion College is firmly committed to honor and integrity in the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, as a member of this academic community, each student acknowledges responsibility for his or her actions and commits to the highest standards of integrity. In doing so, each student makes a covenant with the college not to engage in any form of academic dishonesty, fraud, cheating, or theft. NB: This syllabus is not a contract, but rather a plan for the course, and as such, subject to revision and refinement. The latest updates to the syllabus, etc., can be found on the coursewebs! You should also listen carefully in class for spoken updates and clarifications. Keeping up with the course is YOUR responsibility. OCW Citation: This syllabus is an adaptation of Jean Jackson, 21A.215 Medical Anthropology: Culture Society and Ethics in Disease and Health, Fall 2008. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 10/3/2011). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. For information about Creative Commons licences, please visit:
www.creativecommons.org WEEK ONE January 16-21 NB: One class this week Introduction to the course BEGIN READING NOW FOR NEXT WEEK! WEEK TWO January 22-28 Introduction to basic issues Payer pp. xi-35; Fadiman 3-105 (M) Irrational beliefs in health and healing (W) Fadiman 106-180 WEEK THREE January 29- Feb 4 Irrational beliefs, cont. Fadiman 181-288. (M) Symbolic Healing and Harming (W) Brown, Michael. "Shamanism and its Discontents." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2 (1988): 102120. Ong, Aihwa. "The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia." American Ethnologist 15 (1987): 28-42. Barnes, Linda L. "American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and Their Points of Insertion." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19 (2005): 239-266. Miner, Horace. "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema." American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 503-507. Kirsch, pp. 7-80 (This is a required book) Optional Readings: Hughes, Patricia. "The Sacred Rac." Millar, Jayne C. In Focusing on Global Poverty and Development. Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 1974, pp. 357-358. Good, Mary-Jo Delvecchio, et al. "American Oncology and the Discourse on Hope." Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 14 (1990): 59-79. WEEK FOUR Feb 5 Feb 11 NB: Symbolic healing and harming (M) Kirsch 81-end; Madrigal, Alexis The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 14, 2011 The Cultural Construction of Illness (W) Favret-Saada, Jeanne. "Unbewitching as Therapy." American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 40-56. Wikan, Unni. "Managing the Heart to Brighten Face and Soul: Emotions in Balinese Morality and Health Care." American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 294-312. Davis, Dona. "The Cultural Constructions of the Premenstrual and Menopause Syndromes." Sargent, Carolyn, and Caroline Brettell. In Gender and Health: An International Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995, pp. 57-86. ISBN: 9780130794277. Payer, 35-73 (France) Discussion of paper topic #1. Paper #1 due on Monday Feb 20
WEEK FIVE Feb 12- Feb 18 Theoretical Frames (M) Hahn, Robert A. "The Role of Society and Culture in Sickness and Healing." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 76-98. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Margaret Lock. "The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 208-224. Meaning, Medicine and Illness (W) Obeyesekere, Gananath. "Depression, Buddhism and the Work of Culture in Sri Lanka." Kleinman, Arthur, and Byron J. Good. In Culture and Depression. Berkeley, CA University of California, 1985, pp. 134-152. ISBN: 9780520058835. Martin, Emily. "Medical Metaphors of Women's Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 345-356. Payer, 74-100 (Germany) Optional reading: Osherson, Samuel, and Lorna Amara Singham. "The Machine Metaphor in Medicine." Mishler, Eliot, et al. In Social Contexts of Health, Illness, & Patient Care. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 218-244. WEEK SIX Feb 19 Feb 25 Paper topic #2 to be handed out The institutions of medicine I (M) Hahn, Robert A. "Biomedicine as a Cultural System." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 131-172. Begin Luhrmann, pp. 3-24. Finish Payer this week The institutions of medicine II (W) Hahn, Robert A. "A World of Internal Medicine: Portrait of an Internist." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 173-208. Luhrmann, pp. 25-83. WEEK SEVEN Feb 26 Mar 3 (Happy Leap Year!) The Institutions of Medicine III (M) Luhrmann, pp. 84-118; Gordon, David Paul. "Hospital Slang for Patients: Crocks, Gomers, Gorks, and others." Language in Society 12 (1983): 173-185. The Institutions of Medicine IV (W) Luhrmann 119-202 Optional reading: Chamish, Barry. "Ringworm and Radiation." Israel Insider, August 19, 2004. WEEK EIGHT Mar 4 Mar 10 (Spring Break) Enjoy (and catch up with your reading?)! WEEK NINE Mar 11 Mar 17 Discuss paper topic #2 The institutions of Medicine V (M) Luhrmann 203-265 Optional Reading: von Zielbauer, Paul. "Report says Many Inmates in Isolation are Mentally Ill." New York Times, October 22, 2003. The Institutions of Medicine VI Luhrmann 266-293. Dumit, Joseph. "When Explanations Rest: 'Good-enough' Brain Science and the New Socio-medical Disorders." In Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies. pp. 209-232.
WEEK TEN Mar 18 Mar 24 The Institutions of Medicine VII Rosenhan, David L., et al. "On Being Sane in Insane Places." Science 179 (1973): 250-258. Vuckovic, Nancy. "Fast relief: Buying Time with Medications." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13 (1999): 51-68. Katz, Pearl. "Ritual in the Operating Room." Ethnology 20 (1981): 247-257. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context I Waxler, Nancy. "Learning to be a Leper: A Case Study in the Social Construction of Illness." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 147-157. Payer, Lynn. "Borderline Cases: Medical Practice and National Culture." Whitten, Phillip. In Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2001, pp. 293-297. ISBN: 9780321047045. Lock, Margaret. "Medical Knowledge and Body Politics." In Exotic No More. pp. 190-207. WEEK ELEVEN Mar 25 Mar 31 (w) Paper topic #2 due; Paper topic #3 to be handed out Health, disease and healing in the larger social context II (M) Farquhar, Judith. "Market Magic: Getting Rich and Getting Personal in Medicine after Mao." American Ethnologist 23 (1996): 239-257. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "Min(d)ing the Body: On the Trail of Organ-stealing Rumors." In Exotic No More. pp. 33-63. Begin Kleinman. pp. xi-xv, skim 1-55, and 56-87. Health, disease and healing in the larger social context III (W) Farmer 1-94 WEEK TWELVE Apr 1 Apr 7 Health, disease and healing in the larger social context IV (M) Farmer 95-176 Health, disease and healing in the larger social context V (W) Farmer 177-264 WEEK THIRTEEN Apr 8 Apr 14 Stigma, responsibility and blame (M) Kleinman 87-169
The challenge of chronic illness (W) Kleinman 170-267 WEEK FOURTEEN Apr 15 Apr 21 Paper #3 due W New reproductive technologies (M): Rapp, Rayna. "Constructing Amniocentesis: Maternal and Medical Discourses." Lamphere, Louise, Helena Ragon, and Patricia Zavella. In Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 128-141. ISBN: 9780415918077. Dwyer, Leslie. "'God is Stronger than Medicine': Islam and the Cultural Politics of Contraception in Indonesia." Kaplan, E. Ann, and Susan Squier. In Playing Dolly: Technocultural Formations, Fantasies & Fictions of Assisted Reproduction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999, pp. 37-56. ISBN: 9780813526492. Begin Scheper-Hughes, pp. 1-30; skim pp. 31-64. Socio-political context of reproduction (W): Taylor, Janelle S. "Image of Contradiction: Obstetrical Ultrasound in American Culture." In Reproducing Reproduction. pp. 15-45 Scheper-Hughes, pp. 65-127. WEEK FIFTEEN Apr 22 Apr 28 (Last week of classes) Sociopolitical context of reproduction: Scheper-Hughes 128-215 (M) Scheper-Hughes 216-267, skim 268-479; read the rest of the book if you have time