Stanford University Explore Courses

ANTHRO 82P: The Literature of Psychosis (HUMBIO 162L, PSYC 82, PSYC 282)

One of the great gifts of literature is its ability to give us insight into the internal worlds of others. This is particularly true of that state clinicians call "psychosis." But psychosis is a complex concept. It can be terrifying and devastating for patients and families, and yet shares characteristics with other, less pathological states, such as mysticism and creativity. How then can we begin to make sense of it? In this course, we will examine the first-hand experience of psychosis. We will approach it from multiple perspectives, including clinical descriptions, works of art, and texts by writers ranging from Shakespeare, to the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, to patients attempting to describe their experience. This class is not only for students thinking of careers in medicine, psychology or anthropology, but also readers and writers interested exploring extraordinary texts. There are no prerequisites necessary; all that is needed is a love of language and a curiosity about the secrets of other minds.

Last offered: Spring 2021 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)

ANTHRO 100X: "I'm Not a Robot": The Contemporary Politics of Man and Machine

Our lives today are full of 'smart' machines that appear to deliberate, make judgements, and interact socially. Yet unlike humans, they are bound to their programming, unable to improvise, feel, or ethically value what one pioneering computer scientist called 'the imperialism of instrumental reason.' What role does this rigid 'computer reason' play in real-life projects of imperialism, of racial and class domination, and other forms of social inequality? How does it work with or against existing power structures? We will examine a variety of human-computer encounters across military and government, law and policing, science and medicine, and media and entertainment. Course materials will include ethnographies of computer science and robotics, readings about the history and philosophy of computing, as well as news articles and films related to pop culture and current events

Last offered: Spring 2022

ANTHRO 119B: Tech Ethics and Ethnography: the human in human-computer interaction

Do machines have culture? How do engineers write themselves into their products? Can we better anticipate the unexpected and unwanted consequences of technologies?nnTaking as its point of departure the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), which examines the design and use of computer technology, this course shifts the focus to the humans creating and utilizing the technology. It invites us to think about computer science and social science together and learn how ethnographic methods can be utilized for ethical thinking and design in technology. This course will combine rigorous theoretical thinking with hands-on in-the-field research. Students will devise and engage in their own ethnographic research projects. This course will be of interest to students from a wide range of disciplines, including: computer science, engineering, medicine, anthropology, sociology, and the humanities. Our aim is to have a truly interdisciplinary and open-ended discussion about one of the most pressing social issues of our time, while giving students skills-based training in qualitative methods.

Last offered: Spring 2019

ANTHRO 120H: Introduction to the Medical Humanities (DLCL 120, FRENCH 120E, ITALIAN 120)

Medical Humanities is a humanistic and interdisciplinary approach to medicine. It explores the experience of health and illness as captured through the expressive arts (painting, music, literature), across historical periods and in different cultures, as interpreted by scholars in the humanities and social sciences as well as in medicine and policy. Its goal is to give students an opportunity to explore a more holistic and meaning-centered perspective on medical issues. It investigates how medicine is an art form as well as a science, and the way institutions and culture shape the way illness is identified, experienced and treated.

Terms: Win | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP

Instructors: Wittman, L. (PI)

ANTHRO 131W: Intro to The Illicit Economies of Addiction: Anthropological Perspectives on Drug Use and Policing

This course introduces contemporary anthropological perspectives on the phenomenon of addiction with a focus on mental health and incarceration. In the first part, the course will introduce the making of addiction in the history of drug policing and public health through shifting discourses of the legal and cultural significance of drugs and drug scenes. Then, it will situate drugs at the heart of dispossession of specific communities over generations and geographies in the 20th century. In the final part, the course will invite students to go beyond common analytical categories to historically situate drug use on the links between therapeutic approaches and penal mechanisms. Readings and discussion will focus on the centrality of drugs to regimes of violence and dispossession, while developing a theory of illicit drug economies crucial to the development of modern state and medicine across geographies. The course will make use of philosophical, historical and anthropological literature and video clips and films.

Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

Instructors: Atici, S. (PI)

ANTHRO 138: Medical Ethics in a Global World: Examining Race, Difference and Power in the Research Enterprise (ANTHRO 238, CSRE 138)

This course will explore historical as well as current market transformations of medical ethics in different global contexts. We will examine various aspects of the research enterprise, its knowledge-generating and life-saving goals, as well as the societal, cultural, and political influences that make medical research a site of brokering in need of oversight and emergent ethics.This seminar will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state, the media, and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas. We will also examine how structural violence, poverty, global standing, and issues of citizenship also influence issues of consent and just science and medicine.

Last offered: Spring 2020 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-ER

ANTHRO 139C: Anthropology of Global Health

Global health has been the contested realm of theoretical debates and praxis in medical anthropology. Rationalities behind global health projects reflected the predominant mode of envisioning health in specific historical moments.nn· In this course, we will first assess the ways in which memories, materiality and institutions of the colonial past persist in the field of global health in Africa.nn· Secondly, we will explore how early medical anthropologists participated in international health projects in order to facilitate implementation of the Western biomedicine in developing countries by investigating cultural barriers under the post-war regime of international development in the efforts of controlling malaria and HIV/AIDS in Latin America. nn· Thirdly, we will examine achievements and limitations of subsequent critical medical anthropologists¿ shift of the focus of analysis on global health from culture to structure, larger political economic conditions that produced vast health inequalities around the world, including World Bank policies under the Cold War and neoliberal reforms that increased the prevalence of TB and other diseases in post-socialist contexts nn· Finally, we will question previous anthropological discourses on global health and propose potential insights by understanding moral imaginations of contemporary global health participants such as WHO or Gates Foundation and humanitarian medicine such as MSF, and continuities and discontinuities of colonial and developmental past in current global health movement.

Last offered: Spring 2018

ANTHRO 171: The Biology and Evolution of Language (ANTHRO 271)

Lecture course surveying the biology, linguistic functions, and evolution of the organs of speech and speech centers in the brain, language in animals and humans, the evolution of language itself, and the roles of innateness vs. culture in language. Suitable both for general education and as preparation for further studies in anthropology, biology, linguistics, medicine, psychology, and speech & language therapy. Anthropology concentration: CS, EE. No prerequisites.

Last offered: Winter 2017 | UG Reqs: GER: DB-NatSci, WAY-SMA

ANTHRO 176: Cultures, Minds, and Medicine (ANTHRO 276)

This workshop aims to bring together scholars from the social sciences, humanities, medicine and bio-science and technology to explore the ways that health and illness are made through complex social forces. We aim for informal, interactive sessions, full of debate and good will. Dates of meetings will be listed in the notes section in the time schedule.

Last offered: Autumn 2018 | Repeatable 6 times (up to 6 units total)

ANTHRO 178B: History of Medicine

This seminar course will examine medical successes and failures to better understand the politics, economics, and sociality of medicine as a practice and a culture. Examples will be drawn from technical developments such as vaccines; methodological innovations such as randomized control trials; and the study of specific diseases such as yellow fever, cancer, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS.

Last offered: Winter 2020 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 10 units total)

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