- Health and Healing in Asian Religions

Catalog description

An exploration of Asian medical systems and practices including Yoga, Ayurveda, Indian Shamanism, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, all of which are grounded in the belief that the body is a microcosm of universal, macrocosmic processes. How do conceptualizations of disease affect our experience of it? Does the way we imagine disease reflect larger social processes, such as those based on gender or class? Students examine the religious underpinnings of the models of the body that people in China, Japan and India have used for centuries to heal from illness, maintain good health, and, in some cases, aspire to a state of super-health that transcends the limitations of bodily existence altogether.