In this course, we explore the social, cultural, and political aspects of health, illness, and medicine. Although many people associate cultural and medical anthropology with the study of “other” (Non-Western) cultures, we actually begin the semester by critically examining the culture of biomedicine, or what some people call “Western medicine.” We explore “contested illnesses” within biomedicine, particularly focusing on how systems of inequality like those based on gender and race/ethnicity impact the lived experiences and health outcomes of people with these conditions. We then learn about social determinants of health, and we explore the environmental, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic structures that may contribute to health disparities in our local context. We end the semester by learning about different approaches to understanding, narrating, and representing illness.

Students in this course write an op-ed about a contested illness, make a presentation about a public health issue, and produce a graphic illness narrative based on an in-depth interview.

Go here to see the latest version of the syllabus for this course.