Medical Anthropology, advanced course

How does technology change the ways in which we live, age, and die with our bodies? How do different technologies shape what it means to be a human? What kinds of facts and imaginaries of life are produced around technologies? And, how are existing inequalities and injustices embedded in and/or challenged by these new technologies of living? In this course, we will examine changing contours of human life including the experiences of health and illness and conceptions of life and death in relation to the development, production, and use of new or emerging technology. Moreover looking into the entanglement of biomedical knowledge, policy and technology in everyday life, we will explore how life itself is made into an object of technological intervention. We will furthermore explore how this process, rather than simply offering solutions to given problems, also might reshape our bodily experiences of and relations with the world while engendering novel ethical and cultural problems for us to deal with. In this course we will engage in extensive reading, contemplation and discussion of literature in and around medical anthropology and Science and Technology. The format, with teacher introductions, interactive class activities, oral and written assignments will require students active participation.

The aim of the course is to develop students’ knowledge of the sub-field of medical anthropology to help prepare for a health-related Masters thesis.