Key facts
Details for course being taught in current academic year
Level 3 - 36 credits - spring and summer terms
E-learning links
Resources
Timetable Link
course handbook 2009-10
Course description
Course outline
Drawing from ethnographic and cross-cultural research, the course will explore the relationships between medicine, culture, and society. After an introduction to some of the classical social anthropological approaches to affliction and healing, we will read a series of medical anthropology ethnographies selected for their different theoretical and analytical approaches to understanding medicine and culture. We will consider interpretative, symbolic, psychoanalytic, ‘ethnopsychiatric’, and cultural phenomenological approaches for understanding such phenomena as sorcery, possession, exorcism, shamanism, and charismatic healing. We conclude by examining recent approaches to medicine that can be characterised as cultural criticism.
Learning outcomes
1. An awareness of different theoretical approaches to the study of medicine in different contexts, both Western and non-Western.
2. An awareness of the development of various methodological approaches in medical anthropology.
3. An ability to understand the relationship between methodological practice, date analysis, and ethnography in medical anthropology.
4. An ability to critically evaluate evolving debates in anthropological theory as they relate to medical anthropology.
5. Skills in presentation, both oral and written.
Assessments
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Dissertation (8000 words) | Summer Term Week 5 Mon 16:00 | 100.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
Teaching methods
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Term | SEMINAR | 3 hours | 1111111111 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
Contact details
Dr Filippo Osella
Assess convenor
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/migration/profile102434.html
Dr Mattia Fumanti
Convenor
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/anthropology/profile250875.html