Anthropology 179: Selected Topics in Regional Cultures The Cultural Construction of Body, Mind and Affliction UCLA Spring

Quarter 2012 Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays 2-2:50 PM Classroom: Haines 118 Prof. Sasha David, Ph.D. sashad@ucla.edu Office Hours: Fridays 3 - 4 PM Office Location: 351-B Haines Hall Location to Purchase Course Reader: Course Reader Material, 1080 Broxton Ave., (310) 443-3300 Though we humans are all classified as belonging to the same basic biological species, there are as many different understandings of the capacities and symptoms of the human body and mind as there are different geographical regions. In this course, we will discuss the manifold ways that culture shapes our bodies, minds, and illnesses, by examining ethnographic examples from regional societies around the globe and throughout history. We will discuss understandings of body, mind and disease held by medieval Catholic nuns, unemployed British coal miners, Colombian women, white middle class Americans, Indonesian men, male initiates in Papua New Guinea, and working class African-American women from Inglewood, California. We will seek to understand the effect of various regional cultures on anorexia, alcoholism, abortion, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, lupus, and other matters related to the human mind and body. In the process, we will also look at how different regional cultures construct gender, race, and work. For the midterm paper, you will examine the relationship between UCLA student culture and your own body and mind. For the final paper, you will hypothesize how the suffering of a historical figure is or was related to his or her cultural and historical moment. *** Grading Scheme for This Class: Weekly Reading Summaries: 33% of final grade

Midterm Paper: 33% of final grade Final Paper: 33% of final grade *** Assignments and Grading for the Course: -Twelve-point Courier Font: Do not use it for anything you turn in for this class. All papers are to be double-spaced with defaultwidth margins, and written using Times New Roman font or a spatial equivalent. -Course Readings: All of the readings for the course, which have been listed below, are available for purchase as a course packet at Course Reader Material in Westwood (please see above for their contact information). -Weekly Reading Summaries: As the due dates below outline, you will be expected to turn in summaries of the assigned readings on the Friday of the week when the reading is assigned. Your summaries should consist of one paragraph of summary per assigned article or chapter, plus one extra paragraph that describes your reaction to the readings. Each summary paragraph should be about one half of one typed page. -Midterm Paper: For this paper you will answer the following prompt (which I promise will become more comprehensible to you after the first few weeks of this class): Regarding the regional culture of the UCLA student body, examine the interrelationship between the physical body and the social body (as Mary Douglas defines these terms). You may write about yourself in a self-reflexive, auto-ethnographic mode, or you may refer to the experiences of others. It is not necessary to conduct participant observation for this project, as you may write about any observations that you have already made during the course of your time here. Your paper should be about five pages in length. -Final paper: For this paper you will present a hypothesis as to how the mental or physical suffering of a historical figure is or was shaped by his or her cultural and historical moment. In other

words, how did the regional culture to which this person belonged trigger or exacerbate the physical or mental limitations that afflicted him or her? The data that you will draw on for this paper will include biographical descriptions of this person, and information about his or her culture (which need not be ethnographic, in the strict sense of the term). Therefore, it is quite possible that you wont cite any work by an anthropologist in the course of writing this paper, but the end result will be very anthropological in nature. Your argument can be highly hypothetical and creative; the only necessity is that you attempt to draw a connection between this persons troubles and the culture that shaped him or her. For example, you can choose to write about one of these figures, who suffered from the various afflictions in parentheses: Ernest Hemingway (alcoholism), Flannery OConnor (lupus), Howard Hughes (OCD), or Portia de Rossi (anorexia). You can choose someone who is living or deceased, and this person can be from anywhere in the world, not just the United States. You are expected to include a works cited page with this paper. The in-sentence citations in the body of your paper and in the bibliography should follow any established convention, such as APA or MLA. This paper should be about seven pages long. -Note About Writing Feedback: In the olden days, classes such as these used to have teaching assistants assigned to them. Dr. David is so old that she actually used to be one of the teaching assistants assigned to classes such as these, back when it had them. Now that there are no more teaching assistants for this course, the professor is entirely responsible for the grading of your papers. Therefore, the writing summaries will not be returned to you with comments. Likewise, comments will also probably not be written on your midterm and final papers. Instead, Dr. David would like to invite you to visit her office hours, so that you may discuss matters of writing style and content with her there on an individual basis. When visiting Dr. Davids office hours to discuss your writing, please bring a copy of one of your papers with you. Please always feel free to check with Dr. David as to the status of your grade in this class. (For some reason I chose to write this paragraph in the third person.) -Students Who Have Previously Taken Another Class with Dr. David (a.k.a. Repeat Offenders): Please see me after class for a

brief chat (nothing bad). -Academic Integrity: This is an issue that I do not take lightly. Past instances of academic dishonesty that have occurred in my classes at UCLA have resulted in referrals to the Dean of Students and ultimately, academic suspension. Cutting and pasting a published article abstract, or plagiarizing a sentence written by an author, are among two of the many forms of academic dishonesty that can lead to severe results. I do not use Turn It In since I find that its usually pretty easy to identify academic dishonesty just by using the old eyeballs. -Lecture Attendance: Attendance at lecture is required. You are fully responsible for the material that is covered and the announcements that are made during class. (It is not the purpose of office hours to review lecture material that you may have missed due to a class absence.) The midterm and final paper assignments will be discussed throughout the quarter at lecture.

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Lecture and Reading Schedule: Week One Reading: Virchow, R. C. 2006. Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia. American Journal of Public Health 96 (12). Mead, M. 1972. The Experience and Individuality of the Average Girl, in her Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Harper Perennial. Monday 4/2: Introduction to the course

Wednesday 4/4: Introduction to the course Friday 4/6: Early Acknowledgements of the Connection Between Mind, Body, and Society Reading summaries due today Week Two Reading: Kleinman, A. 1989. The Personal and Social Meanings of Illness in his The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books. Monday 4/9: Early Acknowledgements of the Connection Between Mind, Body, and Society Wednesday 4/11: Suffering Does Not Occur in Isolation Friday 4/13: Suffering Does Not Occur in Isolation Reading summary due today

Week Three Reading: Douglas, M. 2003. The Two Bodies in her Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. New York: Routledge. Monday 4/16: The Contributions of Mary Douglas to Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Wednesday 4/18: The Contributions of Mary Douglas to SocioCultural Anthropology Friday 4/20: Anthropological Perspectives on Family Planning Reading summary due today Week Four Reading: Meigs, A. 1988. Selections from her Food, Sex and Pollution: A New Guinea Religion. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Martin, E. 1991. The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles. Signs 16 (3). Browner, C.H. 1979. Abortion Decision Making: Some Findings from Colombia. Studies in Family Planning 10 (3). Monday 4/23: Anthropological Perspectives on Family Planning Wednesday 4/25: Sex as metaphor in the U.S. and New Guinea Friday 4/27: Sex as metaphor in the U.S. and New Guinea Reading summaries due today Week Five (No reading this week -- you already have enough on your plate with the midterm!) Monday 4/30: Film: TBA Wednesday 5/2: Work Among the Baining Friday 5/4: Work Among the Baining Midterm papers due today
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Week Six Reading: Bordo, S. 1995. Reading the Slender Body in her Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Monday 5/7: Anthropological Perspectives on Male and Female Body Image in the U.S. Wednesday 5/9: Anthropological Perspectives on Male and Female Body Image in the U.S. Friday 5/11: Sex, Gender and the Impact of Capitalism on it All Reading summary due today Week Seven Reading: Lester, R. 1998. The (Dis)Embodied Self in Anorexia Nervosa. Social Science and Medicine 44 (4). Monday 5/14: Sex, Gender and the Impact of Capitalism on it All Wednesday 5/16: Anorexia Nervosa in Historical Perspective Friday 5/18: Anorexia Nervosa in Historical Perspective Reading summary due today

Week Eight Reading:

Roberts, J. 2009. Structural Violence and Emotional Health: A Message from Easington, a Former Mining Community in Northern England. Anthropology and Medicine 16 (1). Singer, M. 2002. Toward a Political Economy of Alcoholism: The Missing Link in the Anthropology of Drinking. Social Science and Medicine 23 (2). Monday 5/21: Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Alcoholism Wednesday 5/23: Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Alcoholism Friday 5/25: Studying Genocide as an Anthropologist Reading summaries due today Week Nine Reading: Lemelson, R. 2003. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Bali: The Cultural Shaping of a Neuropsychiatric Disorder. Transcultural Psychiatry 40 (3). Martin, E. 2009. I Now Pronounce You Manic Depressive in her Bipolar Expeditions: Mania and Depression in American Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Monday 5/28: No class in observance of Memorial Day Wednesday 5/30: Studying Genocide as an Anthropologist Friday 6/1: Comparative Perspectives on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Reading summaries due today

Week Ten (No reading this week since your final is due on Friday!) Monday 6/4: Comparative Perspectives on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Wednesday 6/6: Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Altered Psychological States Friday 6/8: Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Altered Psychological States Final papers due today