Disease and Health: Culture, Society, and Ethics

Readings

Required Texts:

[Fadiman]= Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. ISBN: 9780374533403.

[Farmer]= Farmer, Paul. Aids & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248397. [Preview with Google Books]

[Luhrmann]= Luhrmann, T. M. Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry. Knopf, 2000. ISBN: 9780679421917.

[Sharp]= Sharp, Lesley A. Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self. University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520247864. [Preview with Google Books]

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction to the Course
2	Introduction to Basic Issues	[Fadiman]. pp. 3–105.
3	“Irrational” Beliefs in Disease Causation and Treatment	[Fadiman]. pp. 106–80.
4	“Irrational” Beliefs, Continued	[Fadiman]. pp. 181–288.
5	Symbolic Healing and Harming	Brown, Michael. “Shamanism and its Discontents.” In Health and Healing in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Elizabeth Whitaker. Pearson, 2005, pp. 95–108. ISBN: 9780131273832. [Originally in Brown, Michael Fobes. “Shamanism and its Discontents.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1988): 102–20]. Ong, Aihwa. “The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia.” American Ethnologist 15, no. 1 (1987): 28–42. Csordas, Thomas. “Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 91–107. ISBN: 9781405183147. Miner, Horace. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist 58, no. 3 (1956): 503–7.
6	The Cultural Construction of Disease	Favret-Saada, Jeanne. “Unbewitching as Therapy.” American Ethnologist 16, no. 1 (1989): 40–56. Wikan, Unni. “Managing the Heart to Brighten Face and Soul: Emotions in Balinese Morality and Health Care.” American Ethnologist 16, no. 2 (1989): 294–312. Davis, Dona. “The Cultural Constructions of the Premenstrual and Menopause Syndromes.” In Gender and Health: An International Perspective. Edited by Carolyn Sargent and Caroline Brettell. Pearson, 1995, pp. 57–86. ISBN: 9780130794277.
7	Theoretical Frames	Hahn, Robert A. “The Role of Society and Culture in Sickness and Healing.” In Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 76–98. ISBN: 9780300068719. Lock, Margaret, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. “The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology.” In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. Edited by Peter Brown. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2009, pp. 208–24. ISBN: 9780073405384. Katz, Pearl. “Ritual in the Operating Room.” Ethnology 20, no. 4 (1981): 335–50.
8	Meaning, Medicine, and Illness	Moerman, Daniel, and Wayne Jonas. “Deconstructing the Placebo Effect and Finding the Meaning Response.” In Health and Healing in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Elizabeth Whitaker. Pearson, 2006, pp. 340–7. ISBN: 9780131273832. Obeyesekere, Gananath. “Depression, Buddhism and the Work of Culture in Sri Lanka.” In Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder. Edited by Arthur Kleinman and Byron J. Good. University of California Press, 1986, pp. 134–52. ISBN: 9780520058835. [Preview with Google Books] Jackson, Jean. “Pain and Bodies.” In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. Edited by Frances Mascia-Lees. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 370–87. ISBN: 9781405189491.
9	The Institution(s) of Medicine I	Hahn, Robert A. “Biomedicine as a Cultural System.” In Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 131–72. ISBN: 9780300068719. Begin [Luhrmann]. pp. 3–24.
10	The Institution(s) of Medicine II	Hahn, Robert A. “A World of Internal Medicine: Portrait of an Internist.” In Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 173–208. ISBN: 9780300068719. [Luhrmann]. pp. 25–83.
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, no. 2 (1983): 173-85.
12	The Institution(s) of Medicine IV	[Luhrmann]. pp. 119–202.
13	The Institution(s) of Medicine V	[Luhrmann]. pp. 203–65.
14	The Institution(s) of Medicine VI	[Luhrmann]. pp. 266–93. Dumit, Joseph. “When Explanations Rest: ‘Good-Enough’ Brain Science and the New Socio-medical Disorders.” In Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry. Edited by Margaret Lock, Allan Young, and Alberto Cambrosio. Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 209–32. ISBN: 9780521652100.
15	The Institution(s) of Medicine VII	Rosenhan, David L. et al. “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science 179 (1973): 250-8. Rhodes, Lorna. “Dreaming of Psychiatric Citizenship: A Case Study of Supermax Confinement.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 181–98. ISBN: 9781405183147. Hahn, Robert A. “Between Two Worlds: Physicians as Patients.” In Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 234–61. ISBN: 9780300068719.
16	Health, Disease and Healing in the Larger Social Context I	Payer, Lynn. “Borderline Cases: Medical Practice and National Culture.” The Sciences (1990): 285–8. Rajan, Kaushik Sunder. “Experimental Values: Indian Clinical Trials and Surplus Health”. In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 377–88. ISBN: 9781405183147. Petryna, Adriana. “Globalizing Human Subjects Research.” In Global Pharmaceuticals: Ethics, Markets, Practices. Edited by Adriana Petryna, et al. Duke University Press Books, 2006, pp. 33–60. ISBN: 9780822337416.
17	Health, Disease and Healing in the Larger Social Context II	[Farmer]. pp. 1–94.
18	Health, Disease and Healing in the Larger Social Context III	[Farmer]. pp. 95–176.
19	Health, Disease and Healing in the Larger Social Context IV	[Farmer]. pp. 177–264.
20	Health, Disease and Healing in the Larger Social Context V	Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. “Min(d)ing the Body: On the Trail of Organ-Stealing Rumors.” In Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Edited by Jeremy MacClancy. The University of Chicago Press, 2002, pp. 33–63. ISBN: 9780226500133. [Preview with Google Books] Sanal, Aslihan. “Robin Hood of Techno-Turkey, or Organ Trafficking in the State of Ethical Beings.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 300–18. ISBN: 9781405183147. Cohen, Lawrence. “Where it Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 284–99. ISBN: 9781405183147.
21	Stigma, Responsibility, and Blame	Waxler, Nancy. “Learning to be a Leper: A case study in the Social Construction of Illness.” In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. Edited by Peter Brown and Ron Barrett. McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2009, pp. 147–57. ISBN: 9780073405384. [Originally in Mishler, et al. Social Contexts of Health, Illness, and Patient Care. CUP Archive, 1981, pp. 169–92. ISBN: 9780521280341. [Preview with Google Books]. Farquhar, Judith. “Market Magic: Getting Rich and Getting Personal in Medicine after Mao.” American Ethnologist 23, no. 2, (1996): 239–57. Landecker, Hannah. “Immortality, in Vitro: A History of the HeLa Cell Line.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 353–66. ISBN: 9781405183147.
22	The Challenge of Chronic Illness	Murphy, Robert. “The Damaged Self.” In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. Edited by Peter Brown and Ron Barrett. McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2009, pp. 322–32. ISBN: 9780073405384. García, Angela. “The Elegiac Addict: History, Chronicity, and the Melancholic Subject.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 522–39. ISBN: 9781405183147.
23	New Reproductive Technologies	Inhorn, Marcia. “Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions.” In A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities. Edited by Byron Good, et al. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 319–26. ISBN: 9781405183147. Rapp, Rayna. “Constructing Amniocentesis: Maternal and Medical Discourses.” In Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. Edited by Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragone, and Patricia Zavella. Routledge, 1997, pp. 128–41. ISBN: 9780415918077. [Preview with Google Books]. Cussins, Charis. “Ontological Choreography: Agency for Women Patients in an Infertility Clinic.” In Differences in Medicine: Unraveling Practices, Techniques, and Bodies. Edited by Marc Berg and Annemarie Mol. Duke University Press Books, 1998, pp. 166–201. ISBN: 9780822321743. [Preview with Google Books]
24	New Medical Technologies	[Sharp]. pp. 1–100.
25	Student Presentations	[Sharp]. pp. 101–205.
26	Student Presentations (cont.)	[Sharp]. 206–42.