Monday 5-8 pm.
Spring 2004
X2529
This class will address how the anthropological perspective on the social construction of HIV/AIDS can provide insight into how different cultures are reacting (or not) to the HIV pandemic. Students will become familiar with HIV/AIDS work done in several different countries by a variety of researchers and health care professionals. The goal of the class is for students to learn how to research and describe:
*local ethnophysiological understanding of HIV/AIDS
*social enactment of how the disease is stigmatized
*cultural expressions of desire and sexuality
*power relations with respect to ethnicity, gender, age and socio-economic status, etc. that comprise the structural violence that perpetuates HIV/AIDS
The class will be run on a discussion format. Each week students will be individually assigned a chapter or two from the book listed for that week. Every week the student will write a short 2-3 page paper on their chapter(s) briefly describing the author’s argument and then providing a witty critique. The student will make copies of their papers for everyone in the class. Students will make weekly presentations to the class on their reading assignments.
Students will also complete a term paper due the last day of the class. This may be part of a thesis or a publishable work.
Students are expected to be at every class. No papers will be given credit if the student isn’t present for the entire class. No work will be accepted by email.
All work should be absolutely original and done entirely by the student and no one else. All work must include appropriate citations.
Overview of Class
Review of HIV/AIDS: The Biological Facts as we know them and what does anthropology have to contribute to understanding the issue…
Social science perspectives on HIV/AIDS
2. Week Two-January 19 (do reading for this week and we’ll talk about it on Jan. 26th).
Global AIDS: Myths and Facts, Tools for Fighting the AIDS Pandemic
By: Alexander Irwin, et al
3. Week Three-January 26
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health By: Laurie Garrett
4. Week Four-February 2
Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. Ed. By Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro
5. Week Five-February 9
Conceiving Sexuality: Approaches to Sex Research in a Postmodern World.
By: Richard G. Parker (Editor), John H. Gagnon (Editor)
AIDs and Accusation, By: Paul Farmer
8. Week Eight-March 1 Africa
Letting Them Die: Why HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes Fail (African Issues) By: Catherine Campbell
9. Week Nine-March 8
HIV & AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology
By: Ezekiel Kalipeni (Editor), et al
10. Week Ten March 15-No Class Spring Break
11. Week Eleven-March 22
Local Women, Global Science: Fighting AIDS in Kenya By: Karen M. Booth
12. Week Twelve-March 29
Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries
Edward C. Green
13. Week Thirteen-April 5
HIV/AIDS in Latin American Countries: An Assessment of National Capacity
By: Anabela Abreu, et al
14. Week Fourteen-April 12
The Night is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS
15. Week Fifteen-April 19- Pocatello, Idaho
Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS by Wayne Schow
16. Week Sixteen-April 26
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer
17. Week Seventeen-Dead Week No Class
18. Week Eighteen-Finals Week
Final Class Project Due