This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

 

Readings

The table below lists readings by session. These readings are taken from the following texts, anthropological journals, news reports, and other sources. The first 5 books listed are used extensively, and are recommended for acquisition.

Amazon logo Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. ISBN: 9780374525644.

Amazon logo Farmer, Paul. AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248397.

Amazon logo Kleinman, Arthur. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing & the Human Condition. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780465032044.

Amazon logo Luhrmann, T. M. Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry. New York, NY: Knopf, 2000. ISBN: 9780679421917.

Amazon logo Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520075375.

Amazon logo Hahn, Robert A. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780300068719.

Amazon logo Brown, Peter J. Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. 1st ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1998. ISBN: 9781559347235.

Amazon logo Lock, M., A. Young, and A. Cambrosio. Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780521655682.

Amazon logo MacClancy, Jeremy. Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226500133.

Amazon logo Franklin, Sarah, and Helena Ragone. Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780812215847.

SES # TOPICS REQUIRED OPTIONAL QUESTIONS
1 Introduction to course      
2 Introduction to basic issue Fadiman, pp. 3-105.   (PDF)
3 "Irrational" beliefs in disease causation and treatment Fadiman, pp. 106-180.   (PDF)
4 "Irrational" beliefs (cont.) Fadiman, pp. 181-288.  
5 Symbolic healing and harming

Brown, Michael. "Shamanism and its Discontents." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2 (1988): 102-120.

Ong, Aihwa. "The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia." American Ethnologist 15 (1987): 28-42.

Barnes, Linda L. "American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and Their Points of Insertion." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19 (2005): 239-266.

Miner, Horace. "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema." American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 503-507.

Hughes, Patricia. "The Sacred Rac." Millar, Jayne C. In Focusing on Global Poverty and Development. Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 1974, pp. 357-358.

Good, Mary-Jo Delvecchio, et al. "American Oncology and the Discourse on Hope." Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 14 (1990): 59-79.

(PDF)
6 The cultural construction of disease

Favret-Saada, Jeanne. "Unbewitching as Therapy." American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 40-56.

Wikan, Unni. "Managing the Heart to Brighten Face and Soul: Emotions in Balinese Morality and Health Care." American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 294-312.

Amazon logo Davis, Dona. "The Cultural Constructions of the Premenstrual and Menopause Syndromes." Sargent, Carolyn, and Caroline Brettell. In Gender and Health: An International Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995, pp. 57-86. ISBN: 9780130794277.

O'Connor, Anahad. "The Claim: Heart Attacks are More Common on Birthdays." New York Times, September 12, 2006. (PDF)
7 Theoretical frames

Hahn, Robert A. "The Role of Society and Culture in Sickness and Healing." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 76-98.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Margaret Lock. "The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 208-224.

Lock, Margaret, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. "A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical Anthropology: Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent." Erickson, Paul A., and Liam D. In Murphy. Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory. 2nd ed. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, 2006, pp. 486-513.

"Mail Call: More Than Just Being Moody." Newsweek, October 21, 2002.

Humors (PDF)

(PDF)
8 Meaning, medicine, and illness

Amazon logo Obeyesekere, Gananath. "Depression, Buddhism and the Work of Culture in Sri Lanka." Kleinman, Arthur, and Byron J. Good. In Culture and Depression. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1985, pp. 134-152. ISBN: 9780520058835.

Martin, Emily. "Medical Metaphors of Women's Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 345-356.

Lock, Margaret. "On Dying Twice: Culture, Technology and the Determination of Death." In Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies.

Osherson, Samuel, and Lorna Amara Singham. "The Machine Metaphor in Medicine." Mishler, Eliot, et al. In Social Contexts of Health, Illness, & Patient Care. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 218-244. (PDF)
9 The institution(s) of medicine I

Hahn, Robert A. "Biomedicine as a Cultural System." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 131-172.

Begin Luhrmann, pp. 3-24.

  (PDF)
10 The institution(s) of medicine II

Hahn, Robert A. "A World of Internal Medicine: Portrait of an Internist." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 173-208.

Luhrmann, pp. 25-83.

  (PDF)
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 (1983): 173-185.

 

(PDF)

(PDF)

12 The institution(s) of medicine IV Luhrmann, pp. 19-202. Chamish, Barry. "Ringworm and Radiation." Israel Insider, August 19, 2004.  
13 The institution(s) of medicine V Luhrmann, pp. 203-265. von Zielbauer, Paul. "Report says Many Inmates in Isolation are Mentally Ill." New York Times, October 22, 2003.  
14 The institution(s) of medicine VI

Luhrmann, pp. 266-293.

Dumit, Joseph. "When Explanations Rest: 'Good-enough' Brain Science and the New Socio-medical Disorders." In Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies. pp. 209-232.

Dumit, Joseph. "Is It Me or My Brain? Depression and Neuroscientific Facts." Journal of Medical Humanities 24 (Summer 2003): 35-47.

Belluck, Pam. "'Memory' Therapy Leads to a Lawsuit and Big Settlement." New York Times, November 6, 1997.

(PDF)

(PDF)

15 The institution(s) of medicine VII

Rosenhan, David L., et al. "On Being Sane in Insane Places." Science 179 (1973): 250-258.

Vuckovic, Nancy. "Fast relief: Buying Time with Medications." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13 (1999): 51-68.

Katz, Pearl. "Ritual in the Operating Room." Ethnology 20 (1981): 247-257.

Hahn, Robert. "Between Two Worlds: Physicians as Patients." In Sickness and Healing. pp. 234-261.

Edmonds, Alexander. "'The Poor have the Right to be Beautiful': Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13 (June 2007): 363-381.

Pringle, Rosemary. "As a Fish Out of Water: Women in Surgery." In Sex and Medicine: Gender, Power and Authority in the Medical Profession. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 69-96.

(PDF)
16 Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context I

Waxler, Nancy. "Learning to be a Leper: A Case Study in the Social Construction of Illness." In Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. pp. 147-157.

Amazon logo Payer, Lynn. "Borderline Cases: Medical Practice and National Culture." Whitten, Phillip. In Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2001, pp. 293-297. ISBN: 9780321047045.

Lock, Margaret. "Medical Knowledge and Body Politics." In Exotic No More. pp. 190-207.

Sims, Calvin. "Japan Apologizes to Lepers and Declines to Fight Isolation Ruling." New York Times, May 24, 2001. (PDF)
17 Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context II

Farquhar, Judith. "Market Magic: Getting Rich and Getting Personal in Medicine after Mao." American Ethnologist 23 (1996): 239-257.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "Min(d)ing the Body: On the Trail of Organ-stealing Rumors." In Exotic No More. pp. 33-63.

Begin Kleinman. pp. xi-xv, skim 1-55, and 56-87.

Anagnost, Ann. "A Surfeit of Bodies: Population and Rationality of the State in Post-Mao China." Ginsburg, Faye D., and Rayna Rapp. In Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 22-34. (PDF)
18 Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context III Farmer, pp. 1-94.   (PDF)
19 Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context IV Farmer, pp. 95-176.   (PDF)
20 Health, disease, and healing in the larger social context V Farmer, pp. 177-264. Pieper, Jim. "San Simon Altars of the United States." Pieper, Jim. In Guatemala's Folk Saints: Maximon/San Simon, Rey Pascual, Judas, Lucifer, and Others. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.

(PDF)

(PDF)

21 Stigma, responsibility, and blame Kleinman, pp. 87-169.   (PDF)
22 The challenge of chronic illness Kleinman, pp. 170-267.    
23 New reproductive technologies

Amazon logo Rapp, Rayna. "Constructing Amniocentesis: Maternal and Medical Discourses." Lamphere, Louise, Helena Ragoné, and Patricia Zavella. In Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 128-141. ISBN: 9780415918077.

Amazon logo Dwyer, Leslie. "'God is Stronger than Medicine': Islam and the Cultural Politics of Contraception in Indonesia." Kaplan, E. Ann, and Susan Squier. In Playing Dolly: Technocultural Formations, Fantasies & Fictions of Assisted Reproduction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999, pp. 37-56. ISBN: 9780813526492.

Begin Scheper-Hughes, pp. 1-30; skim pp. 31-64.

Satel, Sally. "A Better Breed of American." New York Times, February 26, 2006.

Cussins, Charis. "Producing Reproduction: Techniques of Normalization and Naturalization in Infertility Clinics." In Reproducing Reproduction. pp. 66-101.

 
24

New reproductive technologies (cont.)

The social and political context of reproduction

Taylor, Janelle S. "Image of Contradiction: Obstetrical Ultrasound in American Culture." In Reproducing Reproduction. pp. 15-45

Scheper-Hughes, pp. 65-127.

   
25 The social and political context of reproduction (cont.) Scheper-Hughes, pp. 128-215.    
26 Reports on third paper in class. Scheper-Hughes, pp. 216-267; skim 268-479. Read the rest of book if you have time.