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Oct 18, 2024
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ANT 3610 - DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS:CROSSCULTURAL SORCERY AND HEALING
credits: 3.0
A new elective course for Sociology-Anthropology students, and potentially a new course in the Medical Humanities minor. Across time and around the world, members of diverse societies have relied on different systems of knowledge to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Some societies rely on ethnomedical traditions that Westerners know as sorcery, magic, witchcraft, or voodoo. These traditions combine interaction with supernatural forces and specialized curative rituals to accomplish various forms of healing-or harm. Students will survey the broad extent of such magical practices across the world, from prehistoric Siberia to present-day Amazonia. Will explore particular examples of sorcery and magic through in-depth ethnographic descriptions and individual research papers. Along the way, will connect findings with broader theories and historical trends in the Anthropology of Health and Religious Studies. Key topics include ethnomedicine; folk etymologies of the body, health, disease, and illness; the distinction between magic, religion, and science; resistance to health inequality. Objectives: A) Identify, define, and evaluate the concepts of illness, health, and well-being with respect to the various social and cultural factors that influence people’s experiences of these phenomena; B) Identify, define, and evaluate the concepts of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft and evaluate their utility as terms of cross-cultural description; C) Analyze and contrast the relationship between magical and scientific epistemologies; D) Analyze the theory of magic as a social boundary-marking tool; E) Analyze a case study of an ethnomedical healing practice that includes supernatural elements. Method of Instruction: Lecture and discussion, Feedback on reading worksheets, and Feedback and one-on-one discussion sessions on independent research paper (broken into eight stages). Method of Evaluation: Grades are divided between reading worksheets, combinations of reading outlines and quiz questions, that accompany all assigned readings, weekly forum or Flipgrid (video forum) responses to thematic questions, and an independent research paper on a topic related to the course. The paper is broken into eight stages over the entire course of the term, to provide ample opportunities to keep track of students’ progress and offer assistance when needed. Meets *NWP Distribution Requirement.
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