Overview
Anthropological analysis of what it means to be human in living and working with innovative medical technologies such as genetic testing, xenotransplantation, intensive care units, organ transfers and gender reassignment surgeries.
This is an advanced course in medical anthropology that explores what it might mean to be an embodied human in relation to a range of contemporary medical technologies. Our examples include innovative and ‘high-tech’ settings, as well as more everyday applications of biomedical science, asking how both enfold complexities, shifting meanings, and tension. Our vantage point considers a variety of subject positions (including patients, scientists, doctors, paramedical workers, clients, customers, users of services, nonhuman animals, communities, and cyborgs). We draw widely from the international literature on anthropologies of biomedicine and theories of embodiment to define (as anthropologists) our own local and theoretically informed account of the politics, everyday ethics and embodied experience of selected biomedical practices, through the ‘mindful body’ . To scaffold this, we also draw on sensory, literary, and creative texts and methods to enhance our access to a phenomenological understanding of this topic
About this paper
| Paper title | Bodies, Technologies and Medicines |
|---|---|
| Subject | Anthropology |
| EFTS | 0.2500 |
| Points | 30 points |
| Teaching period(s) | Full Year
(Distance learning)
Full Year (On campus) |
| Delivery mode | The Distance Learning offering of this paper is taught and assessed remotely |
| Domestic Tuition Fees ( NZD ) | $2,090.50 |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- 72 300-level ANTH or ARCH points
- Recommended Preparation
- ANTH 322 or ANTH 323
- Notes
- May not be credited together with ANTH411 passed in 2002-2004.
- Contact
- More information link
Please visit the Programme of Social Anthropology
- Teaching staff
- Paper Structure
Seminars will be conducted once a fortnight; a number of small-scale research and/or reflexive writing tasks will be completed and lodged via Blackboard through the year, to assist in developing understanding, and also to be used as a basis for class discussion.
- Teaching Arrangements
The Distance Learning offering of this paper is taught remotely.
In-person seminars (with Zoom option) and Blackboard.
- Textbooks
Required reading is from journal articles and book chapters available electronically through E-reserve (accessed via Blackboard). Books may be borrowed remotely from the University Library.
- Course outline
Will be available on Blackboard at the beginning of the course.
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
- Global perspective, Interdisciplinary perspective, Scholarship, Critical thinking, Cultural understanding, Ethics, Self-motivation.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes - Learning Outcomes
- Student anthropologists will demonstrate deep understanding of the work of one scholar in the subfields of the medical anthropology of embodiment and/or anthropological studies of science and technology. Students will achieve high-level skills in book reviewing, critical reading, succinct summarising and analysis of writing as an annotated bibliography entry, and the preparation, research and execution of a reflexive research essay. Students will be able to confidently assess the contribution of medical anthropological theorising of the mindful body within the broader contexts of social science theorising of embodiment. Students will also increase their vocabularies for and understanding of the concept of moral reasoning, as it is discussed in contemporary writing in medical anthropology.
- Assessment details
The paper is assessed 100% internally. There are two major assessment pieces:
- A book review essay
- A reflexive essay critically examining the contribution of the selected book for review to wider discussions on embodiment theories
Overview
Anthropological analysis of what it means to be human in living and working with innovative medical technologies such as genetic testing, xenotransplantation, intensive care units, organ transfers and gender reassignment surgeries.
This is an advanced course in medical anthropology that explores what it might mean to be an embodied human in relation to a range of contemporary medical technologies. Our examples include innovative and "high-tech" settings, as well as more everyday applications of biomedical science, asking how both enfold complexities, shifting meanings and tension. Our vantage point considers a variety of subject positions (including patients, scientists, doctors, paramedical workers, clients, customers, users of services, non-human animals, communities and cyborgs).
We draw widely from the international literature on anthropologies of biomedicine and theories of embodiment to define (as anthropologists) our own local and theoretically informed account of the politics, everyday ethics and embodied experience of selected biomedical practices, through the "mindful body." To scaffold this, we also draw on sensory, literary and creative texts and methods to enhance our access to a phenomenological understanding of this topic.
About this paper
| Paper title | Bodies, Technologies and Medicines |
|---|---|
| Subject | Anthropology |
| EFTS | 0.2500 |
| Points | 30 points |
| Teaching period(s) | Full Year
(Distance learning)
Full Year (On campus) |
| Delivery mode | The Distance Learning offering of this paper is taught and assessed remotely |
| Domestic Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for 2027 have not yet been set |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- 72 300-level ANTH or ARCH points
- Recommended Preparation
- ANTH 322 or ANTH 323
- Notes
- May not be credited together with ANTH411 passed in 2002-2004.
- Contact
- More information link
View more information on the Programme of Social Anthropology website.
- Teaching staff
- Paper Structure
Seminars will be conducted once a fortnight; a number of small-scale research and/or reflexive writing tasks will be completed and lodged via Aoroa through the year, to assist in developing understanding, and also to be used as a basis for class discussion.
- Teaching Arrangements
The distance learning offering of this paper is taught remotely.
In-person seminars (with Zoom option) and Aoroa.
- Textbooks
Required reading is from journal articles and book chapters available electronically through eReserve (accessed via Aoroa). Books may be borrowed remotely from the University library.
- Course outline
The course outline will be available on Aoroa at the beginning of the course.
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
- Global perspective, Interdisciplinary perspective, Scholarship, Critical thinking, Cultural understanding, Ethics, Self-motivation.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes. - Learning Outcomes
After successful completion of this paper, students will:
- Demonstrate deep understanding of the work of one scholar in the subfields of the medical anthropology of embodiment and/or anthropological studies of science and technology.
- Achieve high-level skills in book reviewing, critical reading, succinct summarising and analysis of writing as an annotated bibliography entry, and the preparation, research and execution of a reflexive research essay.
- Be able to confidently assess the contribution of medical anthropological theorising of the mindful body within the broader contexts of social science theorising of embodiment.
- Enhance their ability to engage reflexively with a variety of forms and mediums of knowledge about the body and to recognise the place and purpose of creative texts, in relation to ethnographic, phenomenological and sensuous scholarly traditions.
- Assessment details
The paper is 100% internally assessed.
- Collaborative reading notes (10%)
- Small assignments (30%)
- Book review (25%)
- Essay (35%)