This Barnard Summer Session A seminar in Medical Anthropology is designed with pre-health students in mind, and is a great way to delve into social science- and humanities-oriented approaches to health, illness, and healing from a cross-cultural perspective. Students at all levels and majors are welcome!
THE POLITICS OF CARE
Prof. Lesley Sharp
PhD, Medical Anthropology
What do we mean when we speak of “care”? How might we (re)imagine practices of care as political and moral projects? What promises, paradoxes, or failures surface amid entrenched inequalities? And what hopes, desires, and fears inform associated utopic and dystopic visions of daily survival? These questions will serve as a scaffolding of sorts for this course, and our primary goals are fourfold. First, we will begin by interrogating the meaning of “care” and its potential relevance as a political project in medical and other domains. Second, we will track care’s associated meanings and consequences across a range of contents, communities, and geographies of care. Third, we will remain alert to the temporal dimensions of care, as envisioned and experienced historically, in the here-and-now, and in the futuristic world of science fiction. Finally, we will consider the moral underpinnings of intra-human alongside interspecies care.
Enrollment limited to 10 students
Class meets M/W 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
