Medical Anthropology

This course introduces key theoretical models for studying illness, health, and medicine from an anthropological perspective. Each module will focus on specific themes supported by ethnographic case studies—such as medicine as a cultural system; patient-doctor interactions; diverse medical traditions and cross-cultural medicine; the medicalization of the life cycle; critical global health studies and humanitarianism; the politics of care; the social lives of medicines; reemerging infections; biomedical technologies; addiction; social suffering; and, ultimately, the political dimensions of health policies both in the U.S. and globally.