Bodies, Technologies, and Societies

Catalog description

Bodies, Technologies and Societies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate course that will introduce students to the theories and conversations surrounding the ways corporeal bodies intersect with material and social infrastructures. This class will be taught from the perspectives of medical anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). We will explore anthropological engagements with technologies of care and attempt to answer the question, "How do people use medical technologies to reconstruct their bodies and social relationships in socially acceptable and culturally compatible ways?" This course will use theoretical, ethnographic, scientific, and historical texts, films, lectures, and small group discussions to engage with different ways of understanding the messy -- and sometimes generative -- interactions among bodies, medical technologies, and the societies in which they are situated. Offered as ANTH 301 and ANTH 401 .