ANTHR 4682

Medicine and Healing in Africa

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2024-2025 Catalog. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

Therapeutic knowledge and practice in Africa have changed dynamically over the past century. Yet, questions about healing continue to be questions about the intimate ways that power works on bodies. Accounts of healing and medicine on the continent describe ongoing struggles over what counts as knowledge and who has the authority to intervene in social and physical threats. This class will discuss the expansion of biomedicine in Africa, the continuities and changes embodied in traditional medicine, and the shifting relationship between medicine, science and law. Our readings with trace how colonialism, post-independence nationalism, international development, environmental change and globalization have shaped the experience of illness, debility and misfortune today, as well as the possibilities for life, the context of care, and the meaning of death.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: at least one course in Social Sciences or Humanities.

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2024SP, 2020FA, 2011SP

Distribution Category (GLC-AS, SSC-AS) (CA-AG, SBA-AG)

When Offered Spring.

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