Readings
The table below lists readings by session. These readings are taken from the following texts, anthropological journals, news reports, and other sources. The first 5 books listed are used extensively, and are recommended for acquisition.
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.
Farmer, Paul. AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248397.
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.
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.
| SES # | TOPICS | REQUIRED | OPTIONAL | QUESTIONS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to course | |||
| 2 | Introduction to basic issue | Fadiman, pp. 3-105. | (PDF) | |
| 3 | "Irrational" beliefs in disease causation and treatment | Fadiman, pp. 106-180. | (PDF) | |
| 4 | "Irrational" beliefs (cont.) | Fadiman, pp. 181-288. | ||
| 5 | Symbolic healing and harming | Brown, Michael. "Shamanism and its Discontents." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2 (1988): 102-120. 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. | 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. | (PDF) |
| 6 | The cultural construction of disease | 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.
| O'Connor, Anahad. "The Claim: Heart Attacks are More Common on Birthdays." New York Times, September 12, 2006. | (PDF) |
| 7 | Theoretical frames | 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. | Lock, Margaret, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. "A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical Anthropology: Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent." Erickson, Paul A., and Liam D. In Murphy. Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory. 2nd ed. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, 2006, pp. 486-513. "Mail Call: More Than Just Being Moody." Newsweek, October 21, 2002. Humors (PDF) | (PDF) |
| 8 | Meaning, medicine, and illness |
Martin, Emily. "Medical Metaphors of Women's Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 345-356. Lock, Margaret. "On Dying Twice: Culture, Technology and the Determination of Death." In Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies. | 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. | (PDF) |
| 9 | The institution(s) of medicine I | Hahn, Robert A. "Biomedicine as a Cultural System." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 131-172. Begin Luhrmann, pp. 3-24. | (PDF) | |
| 10 | The institution(s) of medicine II | Hahn, Robert A. "A World of Internal Medicine: Portrait of an Internist." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 173-208. Luhrmann, pp. 25-83. | (PDF) | |
| 11 | The institution(s) of medicine III | Luhrmann, pp. 84-118. Gordon, David Paul. "Hospital Slang for Patients: Crocks, Gomers, Gorks, and others." Language in Society 12 (1983): 173-185. | (PDF) (PDF) | |
| 12 | The institution(s) of medicine IV | Luhrmann, pp. 19-202. | Chamish, Barry. "Ringworm and Radiation." Israel Insider, August 19, 2004. | |
| 13 | The institution(s) of medicine V | Luhrmann, pp. 203-265. | von Zielbauer, Paul. "Report says Many Inmates in Isolation are Mentally Ill." New York Times, October 22, 2003. | |
| 14 | The institution(s) of medicine VI | Luhrmann, pp. 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. | Dumit, Joseph. "Is It Me or My Brain? Depression and Neuroscientific Facts." Journal of Medical Humanities 24 (Summer 2003): 35-47. Belluck, Pam. "'Memory' Therapy Leads to a Lawsuit and Big Settlement." New York Times, November 6, 1997. | (PDF) (PDF) |
| 15 | The institution(s) 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. Hahn, Robert. "Between Two Worlds: Physicians as Patients." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 234-261. | Edmonds, Alexander. "'The Poor have the Right to be Beautiful': Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13 (June 2007): 363-381. Pringle, Rosemary. "As a Fish Out of Water: Women in Surgery." In Sex and Medicine: Gender, Power and Authority in the Medical Profession. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 69-96. | (PDF) |
| 16 | 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.
Lock, Margaret. "Medical Knowledge and Body Politics." In Exotic No More. pp. 190-207. | Sims, Calvin. "Japan Apologizes to Lepers and Declines to Fight Isolation Ruling." New York Times, May 24, 2001. | (PDF) |
| 17 | Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context II | 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. | Anagnost, Ann. "A Surfeit of Bodies: Population and Rationality of the State in Post-Mao China." Ginsburg, Faye D., and Rayna Rapp. In Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 22-34. | (PDF) |
| 18 | Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context III | Farmer, pp. 1-94. | (PDF) | |
| 19 | Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context IV | Farmer, pp. 95-176. | (PDF) | |
| 20 | Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context V | Farmer, pp. 177-264. | Pieper, Jim. "San Simon Altars of the United States." Pieper, Jim. In Guatemala's Folk Saints: Maximon/San Simon, Rey Pascual, Judas, Lucifer, and Others. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. | (PDF) (PDF) |
| 21 | Stigma, responsibility, and blame | Kleinman, pp. 87-169. | (PDF) | |
| 22 | The challenge of chronic illness | Kleinman, pp. 170-267. | ||
| 23 | New reproductive technologies |
Begin Scheper-Hughes, pp. 1-30; skim pp. 31-64. | Satel, Sally. "A Better Breed of American." New York Times, February 26, 2006. Cussins, Charis. "Producing Reproduction: Techniques of Normalization and Naturalization in Infertility Clinics." In Reproducing Reproduction. pp. 66-101. | |
| 24 | New reproductive technologies (cont.) The social and political context of reproduction | Taylor, Janelle S. "Image of Contradiction: Obstetrical Ultrasound in American Culture." In Reproducing Reproduction. pp. 15-45 Scheper-Hughes, pp. 65-127. | ||
| 25 | The social and political context of reproduction (cont.) | Scheper-Hughes, pp. 128-215. | ||
| 26 | Reports on third paper in class. | Scheper-Hughes, pp. 216-267; skim 268-479. Read the rest of book if you have time. |


