Academic Resources: course syllabi: anthropology of the body
ANTH 326: Anthropology of Body, Health and Illness, Fall, 2004 at Sabanci University, Turkey
Professor: Dr. Asli Çarkoglu
Office: 2025 FASS
Phone: 9273
E-mail: aslicark@sabaciuniv.edu
Office Hours: 2:00-3:00 pm Wednesdays, or by appointment
Class times and place: M-3:40-4:30pm FASS 2031, W-11:40-1:30pm FASS 2031
Welcome to ANTH 326. This syllabus is designed to let you know what to expect from this course as well as what is expected from you. If you have any questions, please ask for clarification.
Invitation to the Course:
This is a course about the cultural understandings of the body, the bodily experience of health and illness as well as cultural organization of medical systems we are all involved in everyday of our lives.
The course adopts a cross-cultural perspective and aims to look at the relationships among illness, health, healing systems, the human body, and broader socio-political power systems. We will be looking at how our understanding of our bodies, the diseases, and our health, as well as our embodied practices (e.g. eating, exercise, self-grooming etc.) are shaped by the socio-cultural contexts we live in, and by the cultural meanings that are created to make sense of them. We will also discuss the effects of globalization, specifically of the spread of Western biomedical ideas on local perceptions and understandings of health and illness.
All these arguments will push us to think about numerous ways cultures find to express their worldviews in their approaches to disease, reproduction, sexuality, and bodily processes; issues which involve essential questions about power and meaning.
Course Format:
This class will consist of lectures and discussions. Class participation is an integral part of this course. We are here to learn not only from me and from the readings but also from each other. Therefore, students are required to come to class without absences AND having read the assigned pieces. To help facilitate this reading and the in-class discussion, students are asked to bring in their reading notes to class (min. 1page, double-spaced, notes, questions, thoughts on the readings of the day) to be handed in at the end of each class.
We will start each week with a short lecture about the basic concepts and issues. The lecture will be followed by a class discussion about the implications of what we have learned on people’s lives at three levels: (1) everyday, immediate lives of people; (2) national public policy; (3) international relations.
The quality of student participation in these discussions will determine the participation grade for each student. Class participation precludes presence and thus, un-authorized absences will reflect negatively on your final grade. Everyone will be given one chance to miss class IF they inform me of their absence beforehand. Any other un-substantiated absences will be deduced from their participation grade (and their reading notes grade if it is not turned in the following week, despite their absence). Absences due to unforeseen severe issues (health problems, death in the family, etc.) need to be discussed with me separately.
Course Requirements: |
% contribution to final grade |
|
10% |
|
10% |
|
25% |
|
20% |
|
35% |
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Extra credit (10%) |
MAKE-UP EXAMS: Make-ups are rare and mustreceiveprior approval. (Approval is not necessarily guaranteed). IF ILLNESS OR ANOTHER CRISIS FORCES YOU TO MISS AN EXAM, YOU MUST CONTACT ME WITHIN 24 HOURS AFTER THE EXAM TO CLARIFY WHY YOU WERE ABSENT AND BRING ME DOCUMENTATION AS SOON AS YOU ARE ABLE.
Expectations:
- You are expected to be respectfulof other people's opinions and values. You do not need to agree with all of the diverse issues/opinions covered in class, however, everyone should be able to speak their opinions without fear of being disrespected.
- If you cannot be on time or need to leave before the class ends on any given day, please inform me before the class begins.
- You are expected to keep track of your own course grade as the semester goes along. You are encouraged to periodically double check that the score noted by the instructor is the same one you have recorded.
- You are expected to make & keep a copy of every outside class assignment that you turn into the instructor.
Academic Dishonesty (CHEATING):
Dishonesty of any kind with respect to examinations, course assignments, alteration of records, illegal possession of examinations, turning in the same course work as another student and/or plagiarism shall be considered cheating. As class citizens, it is your responsibility to not only abstain from cheating, but to guard against making it possible for others to cheat as well. Any student who helps another student to cheat is as guilty of cheating as the student he or she assists. Should a student be caught cheating, they will fail that assignment AND they will be submitted to Sabanc? University judicial system. Two or more instances of cheating will result in course failure.
Required Text: (available at the campus bookstore; all required texts are available in the student reserve collection as well)
Medical Anthropology: Contemporary theory and method (1996). Sargent & Johnson (Eds.)
Mama might be better off dead: The failure of healthcare in urban America (1993). L. K. Abraham.
The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures (1997). A. Fadiman.
- Reading package (the availability will be announced in class).
Course Schedule: