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CULTURE, MEDICINE AND POLITICS
Spring Term 2014
Mondays and Wednesdays 2 – 3:20
Instructor: Professor Cheryl Mattingly
Office Hours: Monday 12 – 2 and by appointment
TA office hours TBA
Course Description:
This course brings together medical anthropology and visual anthropology. Narratives,
and other poetic or expressive forms (films, photography etc.) have become central media
through which the experience of suffering is communicated and made meaningful.
Through these aesthetic modes of expression, disease and pathology become visible as
personal and social experiences that shape the lives of sufferers.
In many ways, this is a course about vulnerability and hope. It concerns bodily suffering
that comes with life altering medical conditions – critical or chronic illnesses or
disabilities. Hope and vulnerability may be universal human experiences – as is bodily
affliction -- but they take particular shape within particular cultural contexts. So, too,
practices of healing are shaped by specific cultural, political and social forces. In this
course, we will investigate western biomedicine as experienced and practiced primarily –
but not exclusively -- within the United States. We will consider health care practices
from multiple perspectives, including health professionals, patients and their kin.
We will consider the world of clinical care, the hospital and the practice of health care
from a cultural perspective. In short, we will examine medicine as a cultural practice.
What is the experience of being a patient in a hospital like? How is biomedicine
imagined? How is it represented in popular culture? What are some of the fundamental
concerns, commitments and dilemmas of health professionals? How are these expressed
in their practices? Western biomedicine has historically been faced with a kind of
paradox, one that plagues many health professionals. Should the patient be treated
primarily as a “site” of disease? This, after all, is what the science of medicine has
overwhelmingly been about. Or should professionals treat patients in a personal way,
trying to individualize care to the particular needs and life situations of patients? Is it
possible to do both? Are these two in conflict?
We also pay special attention to illness and disability from the point of view of patients
and their family care givers. What is it like to suffer from chronic, severe or disabling
illness? What kinds of stigma are faced? How does this suffering shape perspectives
about life possibilities? How do encounters with health professionals affect not only
medical conditions but also experiences of living with chronic illnesses? What do
sufferers come to hope for, even if cure is not possible? How do hopes change over
time?
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The final sections of the course are devoted to addressing the issue of power as it
influences the practice and our popular understandings of biomedical practice. Foucault
is a key intellectual figure influencing much of this work. The readings in these sections
situate biomedicine from a global perspective and within what has come to be called
“global health.” They also foreground the political and economic factors shaping illness
and health, the way that disparities arise and how these are developed not only within
particular countries (through differences in social class, for example) but also
transnationally, through global economic forces.
Required Readings:
The books listed below are required readings. From time to time, written lecture notes
may also be distributed by the professor (i.e. posted on blackboard). These will
supplement course lectures.
Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1997)
Garcia, Angela. The Pastoral Clinic (2010)
Good, Byron et. al. A Reader in Medical Anthropology (2010) [Referred to in syllabus
as “reader”]
Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars (2012)
Additional Course Readings posted on blackboard.
Graded Assignments:
Course requirements include two examinations (a midterm and a final) and one written
assignment based upon original research by the student. The examinations will cover
material from the course readings and lectures. The exams will include multiple choice,
short answer and essay questions. Please note that not only regular attendance but also
active participation in discussion sections will have direct bearing upon a student’s grade.
Midterm: (30%):
Final Exam: (40%)
Written assignment – Narrative Interview: 20%
Attendance and Participation (Including Discussion Sections): (10%)
Narrative Interview Assignment:
There are three parts to this assignment. (1) Write a short story (two pages) about a
significant sickness or other medical event (like an injury) experienced by you, or
someone you are close to. Tell it from your perspective. Do this part of the paper first.
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(2) Then, when you have finished this portion of the assignment, give a short description
of the diagnosis that you find on a medical website or in a medical textbook. (No more
than one page.) (3) Third, compare and contrast these two versions of your “case.”
What are the divides? What are the overlaps? (One to two pages.) Total Pages:
Approximately 4 – 5.
University Policies on Disability and Academic Integrity
Statement for Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on disability is required to
register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of
verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from the DSP. Please be sure
the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in
STU 301 and is open 8:30am-5:00pm, Monday through Friday.The phone number for
DSP is (213) 740-0776.
Statement on Academic Integrity—USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning
environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of
respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work
will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by the instructor, and the obligations
both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to
avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand
and abide by these principles.
Use of the Electronics- The use of laptops, Ipads, and other electronic devices within the
classroom will be allowed. However, students are expected to use such devices for solely
academic purposes while within the classroom, i.e. notetaking. Please be aware that if the
use of electronics is abused and becomes distracting or inhibits the learning experience of
other students, this will negatively influence the “class participation” part of a student’s
grade.
Part One: Medical Anthropology -- Culture and Belief
The course begins with an introduction to medical anthropology and its contribution to
the comparative study of illness and healing. When anthropologists originally became
interested in the comparative study of healing systems across cultural contexts, they often
focused on differences and similarities around belief. How were illnesses named and
identified within a particular society? What were the beliefs about causes of illness?
What were the techniques of cure? What were training practices and forms of expert
knowledge? The lectures and readings in this section of the class review classic
anthropological discussions that have helped to shape the way these questions have been
addressed within the discipline.
Class One: Introduction: Monday, January 13
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Class Two: Wednesday, January 15
Evans-Pritchard “The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events” (Reader)
Class Three: Monday, January 20
UNIVERSITY HOLIDAY
Class Four: Wed, January 22
Miner, “Body Ritual Among the Nacimera” (Blackboard)
Byron Good “Medical Anthropology and the Problem of Belief” (Reader)
Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” (recommended,
Blackboard)
Part Two: Illness, Healing, Narrative and Experience
While there are many directions medical anthropology has taken, we will focus here
especially on how it has contributed to new ways of understanding illness as an
experience and not merely a body pathology.There is a new movement within clinical
practice that has involved clinicians, scholars in the humanities, and social sciences, like
anthropology. This has come to be called “Narrative Medicine.” Arthur Kleinman’s
classic work, The Illness Narratives, provides an intial entrance into narrative from the
perspective of anthropology and clinical practice. This section thus begins to look at why
stories are so important to clinical practice – and why they ought to be. We also consider
narrative from the perspective of the sufferer – the one who tells personal stories of
illness, disability, stigma. We consider not only how this experience has shaped their
perceptions of themselves, but also how they have experienced health care – specifically,
what it is like to make a home in the hospital.
Class Five: Monday, Jan 27
Kleinman, Ch 1 The Illness Narratives. (Blackboard)
Class Six: Wednesday, Jan 29
Mattingly, “The Concept of Therapeutic Emplotment” (Reader)
Class Seven: Monday Feb 3
Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Class Eight: Wednesday Feb 5
Csordas, “Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing” (Reader)
Class Nine: Monday Feb 10
Desjarlais, “Struggling Along” (Reader)
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Part Three: The Clinical Imaginary: Biomedicine, Clinical Practice and
Popular Culture
Class Ten: Wednesday Feb 12
M.J. Good “The Medical Imaginary and the Biotechnical Embrace” (Reader)
Class Eleven: Monday Feb 17
HOLIDAY
Class Twelve: Wednesday Feb 19
Janelle Taylor – “Confronting Culture in Medicine's ‘Culture of No Culture’"
(Blackboard)
Class Thirteen: Monday Feb 24
Rapp and Ginsburg “Reverberations: Disability and the New Kinship Imaginary”
(Blackboard)
Class Fourteen: Wednesday Feb 26
Dumit “A Digital Image of the Category of the Person” (Reader)
Class Fifteen: Monday March 3
Green, The Fault in Our Stars (first half)
Class Sixteen: Wednesday March 5
NO CLASS
Class Seventeen: Monday March 10
Green, The Fault in Our Stars (second half)
Class Eighteen: Wednesday March 12
MIDTERM EXAM
SPRING BREAK MARCH 17 – 21
Part Four: Power: Clinic as “Prison” and The Critical Imaginary
Class Nineteen: Monday March 24
Foucault, “Panopticism” (Blackboard)
Class Twenty: Wednesday March 26
Rhodes, “Dreaming of Psychiatric Citizenship” (Reader)
PAPER ASSIGNMENT DUE
Class Twenty-One: Monday March 31
Foucault, “The Power Over Life and Death” (Blackboard)
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Rabinow and Rose, “Thoughts on the Concept of Biopower Today” (Recommended:
Blackboard)
Class Twenty-Two: Wednesday April 2
Petryna, “Biological Citizenship” (Reader)
Part Five: Social Suffering and Social Space: Political,
Economic and Cultural Perspectives
Class Twenty-Three: Monday April 7
Reading Due: Garcia, Introduction/Ch 1-Graveyard/Ch 2-The Elegiac Addict, in The
Pastoral Clinic
Class Twenty-Four: Wednesday April 9
Reading Due: Garcia, Ch 3-Blood Relative/ Ch 4- Suicide as a Form of Life, in The
Pastoral Clinic
Class Twenty-Five: Monday April 14
Reading Due: Garcia, Ch 5-Experiments with Care/ Conclusion: A New Season, in The
Pastoral Clinic
Class Twenty-Six: Wednesday April 16
Das, “The Figure of the Abducted Woman” (Reader)
Class Twenty-Seven: Monday April 21
Farmer, “The New Malaise: Medical Ethics and Social Rights in the Global Era”
(Reader)
Class Twenty-Eight: Wednesday April 23
Good and Good, “Amu in Java: Madness and Violence in Indonesian Politics” (Reader)
Class Twenty-Nine: Monday April 28
Willen, “Darfur through a Shoah Lens: Sudanese Asylum Seekers, Unruly Biopolitical
Dramas, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion in Israel” (Reader)
Class Thirty: Wednesday April 30
No Reading Assigned: Overview of the Course
FINAL EXAM:
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