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P8790-027 Advanced Seminar in Medical Anthropology
This will be a fairly intensive and demanding seminar addressing
contemporary issues at the intersection of medical anthropology and
psychiatry. The topic for this spring will be prospects of recovery
from severe mental illness, with particular attention to schizophrenia.
What follows is a brief description of how I see the seminar
developing. Obviously, not all of the illustrative material can be
covered in a semester - not all of it, for that matter, is currently in
print - but it should give prospective participants a good idea of what
I hope we can cover productively. After a brief review of illustrative,
framing, or otherwise instructive texts located at that intersection
(e.g., Peter Wilson, Oscar, 1974; Arthur Kleinman's Rethinking
Psychiatry, 1988; Tanya Luhrmann's Of Two Minds, 2000), we move to a
critical examination of current approaches to understanding recovery
from schizophrenia. For source material, the seminar will consult
conventional texts (e.g., the WHO set of studies; Richard Warner's
Recovery from Schizophrenia, 1994; Larry Davidson's Living Outside
Mental Illness, 2003; Nora Jacobson's In Recovery, 2004), current
cinema (Revolution #9; Man Facing Southeast) and journalism (Susan
Sheehan's Is There No Place on Earth for Me? 1983; Michael Winerip's 9
Highland Road, 1995), user-authored alternatives (e.g., Dendrite; first
person accounts in Schizophrenia Bulletin), ongoing research (e.g.,
Norma Ware's research on social integration post-psychosis); and
(nascent) internet resources (e.g., MadNation and Mindfreedom websites,
or schizophrenia.com). Expectations of active participation will be
high; a one-page reaction paper will be required each week. The seminar
paper will be a draft narrative section of what would be an R03 or R34
grant proposal. For a (somewhat dated) preview of the seminar leader's
preoccupations, see his review article in MAQ 5(4) 1991. Likely
organizing themes for the recovery discussion include: the
epidemiology/anthropology of "incomplete cures;" narratives and
"wounded storytellers;" the disability paradox and its application to
severe mental illness; meaning and functioning; etc.
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