Anthropology

This course explores anthropological, religious, and psychiatric perspectives on mental health and mental illness, with careful attention to varied constructions of "madness", treatment, and healing across human cultures. We begin with comparative questions: are there universal standards of positive mental and emotional functioning? Are there overall commonalities in approaches to psychic and emotional disturbances? What is the role of spirituality? After considering the history of ‘madness’ in the West, we consider early anthropological and religious models of "madness" elsewhere. We next turn to ritualized therapeutic interventions in small-scale indigenous societies and consider a range of case studies from around the world. We conclude with a unit on culture and mental health in the United States and the ‘globalization” of American models of the psyche (ANTH 236 and REL 236 are cross-listed courses.)

Do you like to "people watch"? Do you wish you could translate your real-world experiences into narratives that are readable and relatable, and also intellectually rigorous? If so, you probably have an ethnographic writer hiding somewhere inside you, and this class will give them the opportunity to emerge. Ethnography, a “written document of culture,” has long been a key component of a cultural anthropologist’s tool-kit, and scholars in other fields have recently begun to take up this practice. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographies to better understand the theoretical and practical significance of these texts. Students will also have the unique opportunity to be the authors and subjects of original ethnographic accounts, and at various stages in the semester they will act as anthropologists and as informants. Although this course will emphasize an anthropological method, it is appropriate for students from various disciplines who are looking to expand their research skills and develop new ways to engage in scholarly writing. (ANTH 277 and WRIT 277 are cross-listed courses.)