Courses of Study 2021-2022 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
Courses of Study 2021-2022 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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ANTHR 4682 - [Medicine and Healing in Africa]

(crosslisted) ASRC 4682 , BSOC 4682  
(GB) (CA-AS, GLC-AS, SSC-AS)      
Fall. Not offered: 2021-2022. Next offered: 2022-2023. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: at least one course in Social Sciences or Humanities. Co-meets with ANTHR 7682 /ASRC 7682 .

S. Langwick.

Therapeutic knowledge and practice in Africa have changed dynamically over the past century. Yet, questions about healing continue to be questions about the intimate ways that power works on bodies. Accounts of healing and medicine on the continent describe ongoing struggles over what counts as knowledge and who has the authority to intervene in social and physical threats. This class will discuss the expansion of biomedicine in Africa, the continuities and changes embodied in traditional medicine, and the shifting relationship between medicine, science and law. Our readings with trace how colonialism, post-independence nationalism, international development, environmental change and globalization have shaped the experience of illness, debility and misfortune today, as well as the possibilities for life, the context of care, and the meaning of death.



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