Anthropology 238
Spring 2002

Professor Anastasia Karakasidou
e-mail: akarakas@wellesley.edu
Office hours: Monday 11:00-12:00 and Thursday 1:30-2:30 or by appointment

The Vulnerable Body: Anthropological Understandings

Course Description

This course begins with the assumption that the human body is a unit upon which collective categories are engraved. These categories can vary from social values, to religious beliefs, to feelings of national belonging, to standards of sexuality and beauty. Readings in this course will concentrate around the classic and recent attempts in the social and historical sciences to develop ways of understanding this phenomenon of "embodiment." We will begin with an overview of what is considered to be the "construction" of the human body in various societies. We will investigate how the body has been observed, experienced, classified, modified, and, sacralized in different social formations. We will then trace the emergence of clinical biomedicine in early-modern Europe. We will read about specific diseases and epidemics. And, we will follow the transformations in body perceptions and embodiment practices that occurred through the concerted efforts of missionaries and colonialists around the globe. We will explore representations and techniques of body modification that take place presently in both the modern West and the Third World. The focus will be on the "closed" modern body as it attempts to simultaneously reproduce itself and delineate the physical and imagery margins between itself and the wider socio-political context. The course will end with an attempt in understanding cancer as the disease of the industrialized "vulnerable" modern body.

Course Requirements

Class Participation 20%
Mid-Term Examination 30%
Short papers 20%
Final research paper 30%

Class attendance is required. Assigned readings should be completed before coming to class. Your participation in class discussions will affect your grade. You are required to write two short papers (3-5 typed pages). The first should be an "ethnography" of your body, while the second should be a book or film review. More details about the short papers will be given in class, but keep in mind that you need to incorporate class readings in your short papers. A mid-term examination and final research paper will also be required. The topic for your final paper should be discussed and approved before the middle of April. You will be required to make a small presentation in class on your paper topic.

Required Readings

The following books (although we will not read them in their entirety) have been ordered and should be available for purchase at the Bookstore. Readings, including photocopies of books and articles, are in the class’s mailbox on the third floor of PNE.

Feldman, Alan Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland
Foucault, Michel Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison
Jackson, Jean Camp pain: Talking with chronic pain patients
Martin, Emily The woman in the body: A cultural analysis of reproduction
McNeill, William Plagues and peoples
Murphy, Robert The body silent
Sontag, Susan Illness as metaphor: And, AIDS and its metaphors
Taussig, Michael Shamanism, colonialism and the wild man: A study in terror and healing 

Monday, January 28

Introduction to the course 

Thursday, January 31

Human Bodies and Biological Evolution

Read:
MacNeil, William Plagues and Peoples Introduction and Chapter 1

Monday, February 4

Human Bodies in Prehistory

Read:
McNeill, William Plagues and Peoples Chapter 2

Thursday, February 7

Cultural Embodiments: Classical Perspectives on Body symbolism

Read:
Turner, Victor The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual (Introduction and Chapter 6)
Van Gennep, Arnold The Rites of Passage (Chapter 6)

Film: Naya: The story of a !Kung woman

Monday, February 11

Cultural Embodiments: Theoretical trends

Read:
Csordas, Thomas, "Embodiment as a paradigm in Anthropology." Ethos 18:5-47, 1990
Csordas, Thomas "Somatic Modes of Attention" Cultural Anthropology 8(2): 135-156, 1993

Thursday, February 14

European Transformations: The "closing" of the modern body

Read:
Foucault, Michel Discipline and Punish
"The body of the condemned"
"Generalized punishment"
"Docile bodies"

Film: Brazil

Monday February 18 No classes, President’s Day

Thursday, February 21

Colonized bodies and the body as a site of resistance

Read:
Taussig, Michael Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man (Chapters 1-2)
McNeil, William Plagues and Peoples Chapter 5

First short paper due

Monday, February 25

Colonized Bodies (continued)

Read:
Taussig, Michael Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man (Chapters 7,8,9,10)

Thursday, February 28

Political violence and the modern body

Read:
Feldman, Alan Formations of violence (Chapters 1,2)

Film: Saving Private Ryan

Monday, March 4

Political violence (continued)

Read:
Feldman, Alan Formations of violence (Chapters 3,4)

Thursday, March 7

Gendered bodies: Reproduction in the modern era

Read:
Martin, Emily The Woman in the Body (Chapters 1,2,3,4)

Monday, March 11

Gendered Bodies (continued)

Read:
Martin, Emily The Woman in the Body (Chapters 6,7,11,12)

Thursday, March 14

Mid-Term Examination

Monday, March 18 No class, spring break

Thursday, March 21 No class, spring break

Monday, March 25

Clinical Biomedicine

Read:
McNeill, William Plagues and People (Chapter 6)

Film: The Forgotten Village

Thursday, March 28

The body and its malcontents: Illness and healing

Read:
Kleinman, Arthur Narratives of Illness (Chapters 1,2,3)

Monday, April 1

Painful Bodies

Read:
Jackson, Jean Camp Pain Chapters 1,2,3

Thursday, April 4

Painful Bodies (continued)

Read:
Jackson, Jean Camp Pain, Chapter 7 and Conclusion

Monday, April 8

The Dysfunctional body

Read:
Murphy, Robert The Body Silent (Chapters 1-3)

Thursday, April 11

The Dysfunctional body (continued)

Read:
Murphy, Robert The Body Silent (Chapters 4-6)

Monday, April 15 No classes, Patriot’s Day

Thursday, April 18

The social construction of illness and its cultural metaphors

Read:
Sontag, Susan Illness as metaphor ( Part II)

Film: The body beautiful

Second short paper due

Monday, April 22

The social construction of illness (continued)

Read:
Sontag, Susan Illness as metaphor (Part II)

Thursday, April 25

Cancer and the Vulnerable Body

Read:
Good, Mary-Jo "American oncology and the discourse on hope" Culture, Medicine, Psychiatry, Volume 14(1)
Lock, Margaret "Breast cancer: reading the omens" Anthropology Today 14(4): 7-15. 1998

Monday, April 29

Student presentations

Thursday, May 2

Student presentations

Monday, May 6

Student presentations

All final work is due by 4:30pm, Monday, May 20

Have a nice summer