Spring 2017 Course Offerings
Spring 2017 Health Humanities Courses
ENGL 611 Narrative, Literature, & Medicine: Advanced Interdisciplinary Seminar
TR 3:30:4:45pm
Jane Danielewicz
Sociologist Arthur Frank asserts that “whether ill people want to tell stories or not, illness calls for stories.” This seminar explores narrative approaches to suffering, healing, and medicine’s roles in these processes. Students learn literary and anthropological approaches to examine medically themed works from a range of genres.
ENGL 695 Research Seminar
M 12:20-3:20pm
Jordynn Jack
*this course is required for the MA in LMC and may be taken twice for a total of 6 credit hours
Guides students through the processes of developing an original research topic, conducting research, and analyzing research, leading students to produce a high-quality presentation of their findings. Topic varies by instructor but may focus on literary studies or closely-related arenas such as medical humanities, digital humanities, and creative writing, among others.
ENGL 763 Introduction to Methods in Health Humanities
R 3:30-6:20pm
Gershun Avilez
*this course is required course for the MA in LMC
This course introduces students to topics and methods in health and humanities. Students will read classics in the field, engage texts from different disciplines and genres, and conduct intensive research into a condition or disability of their choosing.
ENGL 805 Science as Literature: Reading Gender
W 9:05-11:55am
Jordynn Jack
Focus varies by semester, but generally investigates intersections of literacy, pedagogy, and rhetorical theory. Courses range from explorations of technology and literacy, to investigations of forms of writing and pedagogy.
AAAD 387 HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Diaspora
TuTh 3:30-4:45pm
Lydia Boyd
This course explores the history and contemporary politics of HIV/AIDS in African communities and across the Diaspora. The differing trajectories of the epidemic on the continent, in the West, and in the Caribbean and Latin America will be explored.
ANTH 147 Comparative Healing Systems
TuTh 9:30-10:45am
Michele Rivkin-Fish
In this course we compare a variety of healing beliefs and practices so that students may gain a better understanding of their own society, culture, and medical system.
ANTH 248 Anthropology and the Public Interest
TuTh 5:00-6:15pm
Michele Rivkin-Fish
Designed for students already familiar with anthropology and have taken some upper-level anthropology courses, this class is less about what anthropology is and more about making anthropological ways of thinking available and accessible to broader audiences. The course will involve experiential learning about how anthropological forms of knowledge can be presented to the public in thought-provoking ways to increase awareness about inequality in US children’s lives. The course will involve developing a public exhibition on the ways housing inequalities affect children’s well-being, school performance, and life opportunities. Students will use anthropological research methods such as interviews and possibly participant-observation fieldwork, and will think about how to present research data to the public in accessible and compelling formats. This class will involve experiential learning regarding how anthropological forms of knowledge can be presented to the public in thought-provoking ways to increase awareness about inequality in US children’s lives. The course will involve developing a public exhibition on the ways housing inequalities affect children’s well-being, school performance, and life opportunities. We will be using anthropological research methods such as interviews and possibly participant-observation fieldwork, and we will be thinking about how to present research data to the public in accessible and compelling formats. There will be a lot of opportunity for creative individual and group work, and the exhibition will be held on campus at the end of the semester (as well as on-line). Additionally, we will be holding a web-based discussion about our exhibition for a peer-team in Russia, who will be doing a similar project and sharing their work with us as well.
ANTH 319 Global Health
MoWeFr 10:10-11:00am
Amanda Thompson
This class explores some of the historical, biological, economic, medical, and social issues surrounding globalization and health consequences.
ANTH 390 Special Topics in Medical Anthropology
TuTh 9:30-10:45am
Martha King
A rotating topics course related to any of the subject areas and methodological approaches in medical anthropology. Seminar format will enable students to engage closely with a faculty member on his or her area of research. Intended for medical anthropology minors with enrollment open to other students if space allows.
ANTH 437 Evolutionary Medicine
MoWeFr 8:00-8:50am
Joanna Gautney
This course explores evolutionary dimensions of variation in health and disease in human populations. Topics include biocultural and evolutionary models for the emergence of infectious and chronic diseases and cancers.
ANTH 470 Medicine and Anthropology
TuTh 12:30-1:45pm
Martha King
This course examines cultural understandings of health, illness, and medical systems from an anthropological perspective with a special focus on Western medicine.
ANTH 471 Biocultural Perspectives on Maternal and Child Health
MoWe 5:45-7:00pm
Amanda Thompson
This course explores maternal and child health from an evolutionary, biocultural, and global health perspective. It focuses on the physiological, ecological, and cultural factors shaping health and takes a life course perspective to examine childhood development, reproductive processes such as pregnancy, birth and lactation, and menopause and aging.
ANTH 590 Archaeology of Health and Well-Being
TuTh 9:30-10:45am
Dale Hutchinson
Subject matter will vary with instructor but will focus on some particular topic or anthropological approach. Course description is available from the departmental office.
MEJO 561 Medical and Science Video Storytelling
Mo 2:00-4:45pm
Instructor TBD
Students work in teams to produce, shoot, script, and report medical, environmental, and science stories for broadcast on “Carolina Week”, the award-winning, student-produced television newscast.
MEJO 826 Interdisciplinary Health Communication Colloquium
Mo 3:45-4:45pm
Joan Cates
Open to Interdisciplinary Health Communication graduate certificate and master’s track students only. This course is structured for interactive student/faculty discussion on health communication research and practice. Seminar and online blog format.
PHIL 165 Bioethics
MoWe 12:20-1:35pm
Yoaav Isaacs
TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm
Caleb Harrison
An examination of ethical issues in the life sciences and technologies, medicine, public health, and/or human interaction with nonhuman animals or the living environment.
PUBH 420/720 The AIDS Course
We 5:45-7:00pm
Christopher Hurt and Ronald Strauss
This course offers participants a multidisciplinary perspective on HIV/AIDS — its etiology, immunology, epidemiology, and impact on individuals and society. How HIV/AIDS is framed by a society determines not only how affected persons are treated but also the degree to which the rights of the individual are upheld.
SOCI 422 Sociology of Health and Mental Illness
TuTh 2:00-3:15pm
Yang Yang
Course examines uniqueness of the sociological perspective in understanding mental health and illness. It draws upon various fields to explain mental illness in as broad a social context as possible. Attention focuses on how social factors influence definitions and perceptions of illness.
SOCI 469 Health and Society
TuTh 2:00-3:15pm or 3:30-4:45pm
Yang Yang
The primary objective of the course is to explain how and why particular social arrangements affect the types and distribution of diseases, as well as the types of health promotion and disease prevention practices that societies promote.