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UCSF COURSE OFFERINGS in MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
For Medical Anthropology courses currently being taught, click here.
Anthropology 200: Off Campus Study. Staff. Full-time graduate study in the Medical Anthropology Program through the inter-campus exchange or consortium program.
Anthropology 205A-B: Intro to Sociocultural Medical Anthropology Theory. This two-quarter sequence covers the development of major theoretical ideas in social and cultural anthropology as applied to the study of medicine, medical institutions, healing, health and illness. This graduate course consists of a weekly seminar supplemented by selected readings, brief reviews of contemporary work, and a major written paper. Enrollment is restricted, primarily to first year students in the inter-campus Medical Anthropology Program, and requires consent of the instructor. This is a REQUIRED COURSE for students whose home campus is UCSF.
Anthropology 206A: Intro to Theory in Biocultural Anthropology Part I: Evolutionary Biology for Medical Anthropologists. The purpose of this seminar is to review theory and data in modern evolutionary biology from a historical and critical perspective. Topics in human morphological and behavioral evolution and population genetics will be examined through readings, discussion and oral and written presentations. The goal of the course is to enable participants to ground their understanding of evolutionary biology in informed approaches that avoid the pitfalls of narrow functionalist/biological reductionism.
Anthropology 206B: Introduction to Theory in Biocultural Anthropology Part II: Biocultural Approaches in Medical Anthropology. The goal of the course is to introduce students to major research topics and interests in biocultural research within the framework of anthropological theories (biological and sociocultural). This seminar examines the interaction of disease and culture with emphasis on how an understanding of disease requires a combination of theoretical paradigms in anthropology.
Anthropology 207: Advanced Seminar in Biocultural Issues in Health and Illness. This seminar examines the interaction of patterns of social and cultural behavior, and distribution of illness through readings and critical discussions on specific topics with an emphasis on implication for health care. The focus of the seminar will alternate annually between the following topics: communicable (infectious and parasitic) diseases, nutrition, and reproduction and the life cycle. Approval of instructor required for participation.
Anthropology 211A : Research Training Seminar I: Introduction to Ethnographic Research. In-depth introduction to research design and field methods. Problem formulation, research design, and the use of specific methods is highlighted from a variety of perspectives. Emphasis is on identification and development of a research problem, the development of research questions, and the relationship to appropriate methods for fieldwork that takes place in a clinical setting during 211B.
Anthropology 211B: Research Training Seminar II: Fieldwork Training. A hands-on seminar on issues that students experience in the course of their individual field research projects in clinical settings. Emphasis is given to simultaneous data collection, data analysis, and further refinement and development of the research problem. Attention is also given to writing field notes, and to preliminary analysis of field notes, such as the creation of core categories.
Anthropology 211C: Qualitative Analysis. Introduction to anthropological methods of data analysis, including an overview of methodological approaches and in-depth practice in one or more domains, using data collected in 211B.
Anthropology 212A-B-C: Research Apprenticeship. Students work with individual faculty members in ongoing research projects. Each student will work on supervised data collection and analytical tasks, and a broader range of research activities, such as problem formulation, grant preparation, sampling, and research design and execution.
Anthropology 215: The Life History in Anthropology. Course focus is on the life history as an ethnographic method used to study social process and change and as a cultural document useful for understanding values, practices, gender, and power relations in society. Classic and recent works will be read to examine the shift in anthropological thinking from "subject" to "narrator," from specimen of culture to author of meaningful text. Emphasis will be on how the individual-culture relationship has been represented over a 60 year period.
Anthropology 217: Advanced Methods Seminar. In-depth examination of special methodological issues, topic varies. Examples include 217A, Social Network Analysis and 217B, Narrative Analysis.
Anthropology 217A: Social Network Analysis. This computer laboratory class is open to all students interested in the basic theory of social networks and application to health-related topics. Health issues such as tracing the contacts of infectious diseases, examining the social networks of IV drug users or sex workers, or investigating links between biotechnology companies, can all be accomplished through social network analysis. The course will cover classic theory as developed in social anthropology in the 1950s and then move on to examine more contemporary approaches.
Anthropology 217B: Narrative Analysis. This seminar overviews the use of narrative in anthropology and examines it as a method in medical anthropology. Specific approaches such as that of symbolic anthropology (e.g., Bruner, Turner, Fernandez, Rosaldo) and post-structuralist hermeneutics (e.g., Ricoeur, Derrida) will be examined. The uses of narrative analysis in anthropology generally and medical anthropology specifically, as well as ways to combine the analysis of text with other approaches in anthropology, will be explored.
Anthropology 218: Professional Skills
This course provides a foundation in professional skills necessary for an academic career in the social sciences or humanities, including preparing manuscripts and submitting them for publication, preparing a curriculum vitae, crafting grant proposals, and constructing course syllabi.
: Responsible Conduct in Science. Course focuses on scientific integrity in the following areas: data management, publication practices, mentoring, use of human and animal subjects, conflicts of interest, authorship, scientific misconduct, mentoring, harassment and other current problems.
Anthropology 219B: Dilemmas of Doing Research in Clinical Settings. Anthropologists and other social/behavioral scientists face particular dilemmas in doing research in clinical settings. These issues range from philosophical to ethical to methodological. This course will explore a variety of types of clinical settings, problems faced and potential solutions.
Anthropology 220: Program Seminar. Faculty, postdocs and students gather for presentations of contemporary research issues.
Anthropology 221A,B,C: Ethnography for Medical Anthropologists. A three quarter sequence designed to examine the development of the major anthropological genre during this century. Focus will be on works that are of theoretical or substantive relevance to medical anthropology. We will be particularly concerned with the notion of "truth" in ethnographic writing, with the tension between "science" and "humanism" in ethnographic representation, and with the problem of distinguishing cultural reality from the ethnographer's voice.
Anthropology 225: Contemporary Issues. Focused analysis of current debates and issues within medical anthropology.
Anthropology 226: The Cultural Construction of Difference. Examination of how societies construct difference and how people respond to being categorized as different. Explores diverse approaches to the study of difference, such as "the other," stigma, and deviance perspectives. Particular emphasis will be given to writings by anthropologists and others who challenge traditional anthropological perspectives on "the other," such as Abu-Lughod and Rosaldo.
Anthropology 230. Cultural Phenomenology of Health and Illness. Explores phenomenological approaches from a cultural perspective. Moves from an examination of the work of anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers influenced by phenomenological thought to recent developments in the emerging theoretical area of cultural phenomenology. Emphasis is on critique of emerging literatures in embodiment and emotion, (including Merleau-Ponty, Csordas, and Lyon) with respect to health and illness.
Anthropology 231. Idioms of Distress. Analysis of the burgeoning literature on the experience of illness and distress. Focus will be not only on person-centered approaches to experience, but on social and cultural factors that structure and limit experience in certain forms. Provider-patient interactions will be examined with special reference to barriers to communication.
Anthropology 233: Age and Society. Analysis of social structures and institutions and their creation of age, life stages, development, and aging. From earliest studies of age-set societies to contemporary Euro-American age hierarchies, the range of human possibilities for organizing age in social groups will be examined. Major theoretical trends in human development and aging will be reviewed, with a focus on a critique of universalist, determinist, and disease driven views of the aging process
Introduction to Cultural Issues in Health Care
This seminar explores the ways in which differences of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability impact the experience and practice of health care in the United States . The course introduces key concepts and issues in multicultural health care and emphasizes multidisciplinary strategies for improving clinical care. This course is open to medical and nursing students and graduate students in all programs.
Culture and Integrative Medicine
This course (co-taught with Ellen Hughes , M.D.) is a month-long, interdisciplinary fourth-year elective for medical students that is also open to social science graduate students. The course includes the following five components: core seminars; preceptorships; clinical case conferences; experiential learning; and independent learning (including the completion and presentation of a final project).
Anthropology 239: Cultural Construction of Women, Children and Families. Anthropological approaches to study of women, children, and families, focusing on diverse family forms.
Anthropology 240: The Anthropology of Disruption. Examines the nature of disruptions in contemporary societies, including those disruptions that occur at the level of the individual, such as illness, and those that are community-wide, such as natural disasters and riots. Moves from an examination of disruption from a historical perspective to an exploration of disruption in developing and industrial societies, such as warfare and epidemics, and addresses how disruptions of various sorts affect everyday life. Emphasis is on the relevance of an anthropological perspective for the study of disruption.
Anthropology 245: Developmental and Cultural Issues in Aging. Course covers developmental theory and research in aging. Emphasis is on anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies. Current issues in aging with an emphasis on implications for health care are discussed.
Anthropology 247: Cultural Models in Contemporary U.S. Society. Examines US society from a cultural models perspective. The course explores the folk model construct and overviews the work of cognitive anthropologists in repackaging folk models as cognitive constructs, called cultural models. Traces the evolution of the notion of cultural values in symbolic anthropology and the relationship between cultural values and cultural models. The cultural models construct is utilized in analyzing various aspects of US society. Questions are raised about the construct's relevance for those who are outside the US mainstream. Addresses the question: "Does this construct fit with a postmodern perspective, and if so, how?"
Anthropology 248: Group Study. Groups of two or more collaborate on special problems in anthropology under the direction of faculty. Students may select areas related to their long-term interest and future research program.
Anthropology 249: Directed Reading. Independent Study.
Anthropology 251: Critical Gerontology. Use of critical theoretical perspective to re-frame contemporary debates in gerontological/geriatric literature.
Anthropology 252: Introduction to Health Policy. The health policy making process will be examined from a cross-cultural and political perspective, including factors influencing policy formulation, policy makers and other actors in the policy process, and the role of national and international health organizations and special interest groups.
Anthropology 254: Introduction to International Health. This course explores the field of international health within the broader context of health and development. Basic issues related to major diseases and conditions in developing countries, including international health organizations and their influence on approaches to prevention, treatment, and control will be reviewed from a cross-cultural perspective.
Anthropology 261: Health and Human Survival. Explores the social causes of ill-health and malnutrition in the Third World Initial readings will examine western health and development efforts in the context of economic and social inequalities that undermine them and with which they are intimately connected. We will then concentrate on the efforts of Third World peoples to challenge global and local inequalities in the pursuit of health and self-reliant development. Course focus is flexible to student's priorities.
Anthropology 262: Poverty and Health in the US. This seminar explores the social causes of ill-health and the grassroots response to poverty and disease in the United States. Initial focus is on social inequality and its effect on the lives, health, and well-being of the nation's poor. Examines state policy from the War on Poverty to the "War on Welfare." Questions assumptions about the "culture of poverty" and the "pathology of the Black family." The examines the rich history of resistance and accommodation as poor Americans have responded to the underlying causes of ill-health.
Anthropology 263: Self and Personhood. Beginning with classic readings on the concepts of self and person (e.g., James, Vico, GHMead, Hallowell, and Mauss), this course sets a foundation for exploration of contemporary issues in the area, including addressing the question of multiple vs. singular selves, a presumed "Western" notion of the self, and late-industrial threats to self and personhood. The focus will be on major theoretical debates and on grounding theoretical discussion in specific culture areas.
Anthropology 265: Social Studies of Science and Technology. Doctoral seminar reviews early functionalist and Marxist theories of science and Kuhn's work as the fundamental watershed in the development of contemporary science studies through its assertion of the significance of social factors in scientific work and in the construction and production of scientific knowledge and technologies. It then focuses intently on studies of scientific practice via social constructionist, ethnomethodological, ethnographic and interactionist science studies as these diverse perspectives have attempted to open up "black boxes", including laboratory, network, social worlds, and representations studies. Course concludes with sessions on critical science studies, scientific controversies and technology studies. Emphasis is primarily though not exclusively on the life sciences; linkages to history and philosophy of science are made throughout.
Anthropology 266: Advanced Seminar in the Anthropology of Science and Technology. By virtue of our discipline's particular theory and research methods, anthropologists have made some distinctive contributions to the social study of science and technology. For example, anthropology's traditional concern with the problem of meaning has led to the investigation of cultural meanings embedded in tools and techniques that are often understood in purely instrumental terms. Each time it is given, this seminar will be structured around a particular theme (e.g., the construction of information in medical computing). Using the current theme as a focus, we will explore pertinent STS literature and identify how anthropological perspectives and methods have contributed (and could contribute further) to that literature.
Anthropology 269: Anthropology of Biomedicine. Examines recent theoretical directions in the study of biomedicine. Emphasis will be given, first, to different paradigms used in studying biomedicine such as explanatory systems and political economy, followed by an in-depth examination of the literature in the following areas: biomedical ethos, biomedical practitioners, physician-patient interactions, clinical knowledge and reasoning, the interface of biomedicine with indigenous, or folk belief systems, international studies of biomedicine, and the practice of biomedicine in relation to specific populations such as poor people, women, and ethnic minorities.
Anthropology 270: Technology and Everyday Life. Examines health-related technology, as it impinges on everyday lives of people who have health problems. Explores various theoretical perspectives on technology and their relevance in the postmodern era. Differentiates between "low" and "high" technology and the cultural implications of different technological approaches. Different kinds of technologies are examined across a range of cultures, including the interface of biomedical and indigenous technologies and local variations. The effects of technology in reshaping people's ideas about health and illness are explored in-depth, especially with respect to the body and metaphors of illness, health, and well-being. Addresses questions such as, "How does culture shape technology?" "How does technology reshape bodily understandings?," and "How does the body's engagement with technology transform the technological process?"
Anthropology 297: Special Study. Independent Study
Anthropology 299: Dissertation. For graduate students engaged in dissertation research and writing.
Course Offerings in Related Disciplines
In addition to these courses, a number of courses are available to students in other Schools, Departments and Programs on the UCSF campus. These include courses in Ambulatory and Community Medicine, Psychiatry, History of Health Sciences, Human Development and Aging, Nursing, Pharmacy, Psychology, and Sociology.
The student may also chose electives on the Berkeley campus, including courses in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, Nutritional Sciences, Public Health, and Social Welfare. Full credit is accorded to the UCSF campus student for courses taken on the UCB campus.
For a complete list of course offerings, please consult the General Catalogues for the respective campuses.
The UCB catalogue may be obtained by writing to the
Registrar's Office, Sproul Hall,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720.
The UCSF catalogue may be obtained from the
Registrar and Admissions Office,
Box 0244,
University of California,
San Francisco, CA 94143-0244.
There is a charge for each catalogue.
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