Biopolitics in Medical Anthropology

Advanced anthropology course examining the intersections of culture, politics and medicine from a variety of theoretical and scholarly approaches. With a strong emphasis on contemporary states and governments, the readings focus on how biology and politicsor biopoliticsconverge in a myriad of ways to shape human experience, past and present. Study of the biopolitics in countries such as Cuba, Egypt, Haiti, South Africa, France, the United States, and more. Topics include: the history and culture of modern western biomedicine; religious perspectives of the body; organ donation and transplantation; sex, gender and reproductive technologies; racialized bodies in medical science; global poverty and infectious disease; ethics and medical humanitarianism; and how big pharmaceutical companies shape our ideas of health and personhood.