Seminar in Mind, Body, & Health (485-0-1)
Instructors
Rebecca A Seligman
847/491-7207
1810 Hinman Ave., Room #204, EV Campus
Rebecca Seligman is a medical and psychological anthropologist who focuses on transcultural psychiatry, or the study of mental health in cross-cultural perspective. Her past research has explored the connection between mental health and religious participation in a spirit possession religion in Northeastern Brazil. Seligman is an expert in the study of ritual trance and altered states of consciousness. Her current research focuses on mental and physical health among Latino youth in the U.S. This project examines how sociocultural influences on the ways in which Latino youth conceptualize and experience their emotions, relationships, and ultimately, their sense of self, affect help seeking and the experience of mental health care. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and her work has appeared in Discover Magazine.
Meeting Info
ANTHRO Lab A58 - 1810 Hinmn: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This course will provide a graduate level introduction to the anthropology of mind, body, and health, addressing broadly the question of how people use cultural resources to cope with pain, illness, suffering and healing in specific social, cultural and political contexts. In addition, we will analyze how body and mind, health and illness, are socially influenced and socially constructed, how these constructions articulate with the material body, and how they are influenced by and implicated in power. We will give special attention to trauma, as a diagnostic category, biopolitical construct, and an experiential domain. We will also explore in depth the concept of embodiment, its various uses and meanings, especially in the context of the social determinants of illness and healing. The course will combine an examination of current theoretical paradigms with ethnographic case material from around the world, including Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the US, and Canada. The goal of this comparative endeavor will be to analyze similarities and differences across understandings of mind and body and systems of healing, and to examine medical systems, behaviors, practices and institutions critically in order to understand the implications of the ways in which they are socially and politically embedded and culturally specific.
Registration Requirements
Grads Only; Non-Anthro Students with Instructor's Permission
Class Materials (Required)
Readings on Canvas; Domesticating Organ Transplant by Megan Crowley Matoka. (978-0-8223-6067-4)
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Non-Anthro Grads need permissi
Add Consent: Instructor Consent Required