Courses by Academic Year
2023-2024
Fall Semester 2023
GMS MA 700 History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part I)
This course introduces the history of the field of medical anthropology and of theoretical orientations related to understanding and analyzing health and medicine in society and culture. Readings will exemplify interpretive strategies applied to health-related experiences, discourse, knowledge, and practice. 3 cr.
GMS MA 710 Medical Anthropology & Qualitative Research Methods and Design
Introduction to methodology for ethnographic field research in medical anthropology, and qualitative research methods. This course examines issues in designing anthropological research, and reviews theoretical approaches to research ethics, designing research, framing questions and interview design, and data collection techniques. 3 cr.
GMS MA 742 Medical Anthropological and Qualitative Data Analysis
Prereq: Permission of instructor. Examines strategies for analyzing medical anthropology data deriving from interviews and documents. In addition to reviewing different coding strategies and the rationales underlying them, the course will discuss topics such as approaches to managing textual data; the selection and application of epistemological and theoretical frameworks; narrative and discourse analysis; cognitive anthropology theory and methods; the use of grounded theory. Emphasizes the application of these strategies to the analysis and interpretation of data collected by the students as part of the course process. 3 cr.
GMS MA 734 Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar will read medical anthropological texts analytically. Starting with a review of the debates, going through selected classic ethnographic studies, the seminar will explore ethnographies that address different cultural meanings of human experiences of suffering and affliction, including illness and violence. Students will engage in studying the methodology, theoretical underpinnings, writing, and social positions represented in these ethnographies. Specific attention will be given to the role of applied anthropology and applied anthropologists. 3 cr.
GMS MA 785 Medical Anthropology Thesis Writing, Pt. 1
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar provides a mentored weekly writing workshop for students in the Master of Science in Medical Anthropology & Cross-Cultural Practice (MACCP) program, who are writing their master’s thesis. It builds on work you have previously done, which includes: designing a research proposal and related IRB protocol; studying theoretical frameworks in medical anthropology; conducting fieldwork (participant observation and interviews, the collection of material culture, photographs, recordings, etc.), analyzing and coding data, clarifying and refining your research question, constructing your thesis argument, and developing theoretical frameworks with which to interpret your data.
Because we will conduct the seminar as an intensive writing workshop, you will not only complete sections and chapters of your thesis; you will also learn to provide in-depth peer-review comments and feedback on each other’s work, while honing and strengthening your own writing skills. In addition, you will learn to prepare a PowerPoint slide presentation for your thesis defense, and to then re-present the slides to the Research-In-Progress Group in the Department of Family Medicine, and to the community or organization where you conducted their research. Finally, you will also learn how to revise a chapter from your thesis to submit for publication to a peer-reviewed journal, and to prepare a draft of you ePortfolio as part of your professional development. 3cr.
GMS MA 622: Religion, Culture and Public Health
This medical anthropology course will explore relationships between religion, culture, and health in the context of public health projects. We will examine historical developments, examples of faith-based public health organizations, and current research on “religious health assets,” both locally and internationally. Students will design and conduct qualitative research projects on the culture of a faith-based health organization. 3 cr.
GMS MA 640 The Cultural Formation of the Clinician: Implications for Practice
This course will provide a context for exploring and reflecting on one’s own cultural formation in relation to such topics as gender, sexual orientation, race, class, religion, body size, and other areas where there are the greatest risks for health disparities through unexamined bias. The course examines the values one brings into one’s practice as a care provider, and how the interaction of both influence one’s personal and professional life, including responses to diverse patient cultures. 3 cr.
GMS MA 670 Health and Power in Latin America and the Caribbean
The aim of this course is to examine the socio-political, economic, historical and public health dimensions that have promoted or jeopardized people’s wellbeing in Latin America and the Caribbean. This course will introduce students to historical and contemporary debates around the right to health in this region. We will explore the origin and theoretical foundations of the social movement known as Latin American Social Medicine (LASM) and the historical role it has played in promoting health and advancing the right to health in Latin America. Students will explore the political economy of health theory, and the theoretical frameworks of critical medical anthropology and of LASM to study health and disease. Ethnographies and accompanying articles from various disciplines will guide a critical exploration of the connections between health disparities, social justice, and health as a human right in the region. 3 cr.
GMS MA 677 Special Topics in Medical Anthropology: Program Evaluation for Social Scientists
This course will examine different approaches to applying the tools and methods of anthropology to evaluating programs. Evaluation anthropology takes an integrated approach that examines meanings of program efficacy and effectiveness, in the context of cultural systems that change over time and space. As Mary Odell Butler has asked, “How can we establish useful statements of program value given the complex contexts in which programs are implemented? How can we arrive at evaluation results induced from variable manifestations of program concepts in complex cultural systems?” 3 cr.
Spring Semester 2024
GMS MA 701 History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part II)
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Course will address theoretical traditions in medical anthropology, focusing on orientations developed and applied within the field over the past two decades to interpretations of health-related phenomena. 3 cr.
GMS MA 770 IRB Proposal Development and Writing
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Students will learn to write a medical anthropology research proposal and related Institutional Review Board Proposal, through the structure provided by the IRB of BUSM. We will address theory and methods related to the design and review process. 3 cr.
GMS MA 735 Writing Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. This seminar builds on GMS MA 734 (Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology), turning the focus to the actual craft of writing ethnography. It is an integral part of MACCP students’ thesis-writing training. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. Through a series of exercises that draw on their own field notes and participant observations, students learn to employ three genres of cultural representation—realist tales, confessional tales, and impressionist tales. Students will explore their own authorial voice and style, and their relationship with truth, objectivity, and point-of-view. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr.
GMS MA 786 Final Project Writing Seminar
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar will train learners in the theory and practice of writing up medical anthropology research findings, and of writing ethnography. The course emphasizes analytical writing. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr.
GMS MA 630: Medical Anthropology and the Cultures of Biomedicine
This course examines biomedicine as a cultural system with multiple local and national expressions worldwide, all of which have undergone changes over time. Topics will include the exploration of biomedicine as a cultural system, with cultural variations and different conceptual domains; processes of acculturation to biomedicine, the medicalization of social realities; biomedical narratives; the patient-doctor relationship (including when the physician is the patient); understandings of interventions and the meanings assigned to them; and different ways of thinking about efficacy in relation to process and chronicity. The course will draw on ethnographic studies of biomedicine not only in the United States, but in other global settings. 3 cr.
GMS MA 624: Anthropology of Immigrant Health
This course will examine key areas in the study of immigrant and migrant health, drawing on concepts, methods, and theories developed by medical anthropology. We will explore intersections between health care and immigration policy, access to services, practices characterized as “cultural competency,” the contests and collaborations within medical pluralism, segmented acculturation, and the politics of “illegal status” as a form of social regulation. We will also employ ethnographic analyses of those processes that exacerbate the structural vulnerability of immigrants (whether undocumented or not) to ill-health, and discuss case examples of advocacy- and community-based initiatives that have improved immigrants’ access to social services and their overall well-being in their social and health landscapes. 3 cr. [/collapsible
This seminar focuses on selected issues in medical anthropology. This semester, the course will introduce epidemiologic theories and methods to students who are in the social sciences and humanities. The course seeks to systematically analyze the field of epidemiology and how the discipline is leveraged in a spectrum of health arenas. We will examine core topics and concepts such as causality, associations, confounding and interactions, as well as review epidemiologic study designs, as a way to critically engage with the epidemiologic activity of quantitative analysis toward specific public health aims and objectives. Students will be encouraged to approach epidemiologic methods and theories with a critical eye toward recognizing the assumptions, disciplinary power and actions that epidemiologists take to achieve their mission and vision for health and wellbeing. 3 cr.
GMS MA 677: Special Topics in Medical Anthropology: Epidemiology for Social Scientists
GMS MA 678: Reproductive Anthropology
Reproductive Anthropology can encompass all aspects of human reproduction and sexual/reproductive health. These include: adolescent sexuality, fertility, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, birthing, adoption, breastfeeding, the health needs of LGBTQ communities, assisted reproductive technologies, masculinity & male infertility, reproductive health care in and across various care settings. Each of these topics can be explored in varying sociocultural and political-economic contexts locally, nationally, and internationally, in relation to the roles of race, class, gender, and nationality in all of the above, and many other topics. Any issue, practice, illness, trend, or debate that combines human behavior and reproductive health or ability is fertile ground for medical anthropology examination from evolutionary, biocultural, and critical-medical perspectives. 3 cr.
2024-2025
Fall Semester 2024
GMS MA 700 History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part I)
This course introduces the history of the field of medical anthropology and of theoretical orientations related to understanding and analyzing health and medicine in society and culture. Readings will exemplify interpretive strategies applied to health-related experiences, discourse, knowledge, and practice. 3 cr.
GMS MA 710 Medical Anthropology & Qualitative Research Methods and Design
Introduction to methodology for ethnographic field research in medical anthropology, and qualitative research methods. This course examines issues in designing anthropological research, and reviews theoretical approaches to research ethics, designing research, framing questions and interview design, and data collection techniques. 3 cr.
GMS MA 742 Medical Anthropological and Qualitative Data Analysis
Prereq: Permission of instructor. Examines strategies for analyzing medical anthropology data deriving from interviews and documents. In addition to reviewing different coding strategies and the rationales underlying them, the course will discuss topics such as approaches to managing textual data; the selection and application of epistemological and theoretical frameworks; narrative and discourse analysis; cognitive anthropology theory and methods; the use of grounded theory. Emphasizes the application of these strategies to the analysis and interpretation of data collected by the students as part of the course process. 3 cr.
GMS MA 734 Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar will read medical anthropological texts analytically. Starting with a review of the debates, going through selected classic ethnographic studies, the seminar will explore ethnographies that address different cultural meanings of human experiences of suffering and affliction, including illness and violence. Students will engage in studying the methodology, theoretical underpinnings, writing, and social positions represented in these ethnographies. Specific attention will be given to the role of applied anthropology and applied anthropologists. 3 cr.
GMS MA 785 Medical Anthropology Thesis Writing, Pt. 1
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar provides a mentored weekly writing workshop for students in the Master of Science in Medical Anthropology & Cross-Cultural Practice (MACCP) program, who are writing their master’s thesis. It builds on work you have previously done, which includes: designing a research proposal and related IRB protocol; studying theoretical frameworks in medical anthropology; conducting fieldwork (participant observation and interviews, the collection of material culture, photographs, recordings, etc.), analyzing and coding data, clarifying and refining your research question, constructing your thesis argument, and developing theoretical frameworks with which to interpret your data.
Because we will conduct the seminar as an intensive writing workshop, you will not only complete sections and chapters of your thesis; you will also learn to provide in-depth peer-review comments and feedback on each other’s work, while honing and strengthening your own writing skills. In addition, you will learn to prepare a PowerPoint slide presentation for your thesis defense, and to then re-present the slides to the Research-In-Progress Group in the Department of Family Medicine, and to the community or organization where you conducted their research. Finally, you will also learn how to revise a chapter from your thesis to submit for publication to a peer-reviewed journal, and to prepare a draft of you ePortfolio as part of your professional development. 3cr.
GMS MA 620 World Religions and Healing
This course examines Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of world religions and healing. Provides an introduction to healing worldviews, strategies, and practices integral to Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, African, African-descended, Latin American, Chinese, Native American traditions, and to some of the outcomes of their interactions, in relation to the experience of affliction and suffering. Draws on source materials from history, religious studies, and medical anthropology. 4 cr.
GMS MA 640 The Cultural Formation of the Clinician: Implications for Practice
This course will provide a context for exploring and reflecting on one’s own cultural formation in relation to such topics as gender, sexual orientation, race, class, religion, body size, and other areas where there are the greatest risks for health disparities through unexamined bias. The course examines the values one brings into one’s practice as a care provider, and how the interaction of both influence one’s personal and professional life, including responses to diverse patient cultures. 3 cr.
GMS MA 670 Health and Power in Latin America and the Caribbean
The aim of this course is to examine the socio-political, economic, historical and public health dimensions that have promoted or jeopardized people’s wellbeing in Latin America and the Caribbean. This course will introduce students to historical and contemporary debates around the right to health in this region. We will explore the origin and theoretical foundations of the social movement known as Latin American Social Medicine (LASM) and the historical role it has played in promoting health and advancing the right to health in Latin America. Students will explore the political economy of health theory, and the theoretical frameworks of critical medical anthropology and of LASM to study health and disease. Ethnographies and accompanying articles from various disciplines will guide a critical exploration of the connections between health disparities, social justice, and health as a human right in the region. 3 cr.
GMS MA 677 Special Topics in Medical Anthropology: Program Evaluation for Social Scientists
This course will examine different approaches to applying the tools and methods of anthropology to evaluating programs. Evaluation anthropology takes an integrated approach that examines meanings of program efficacy and effectiveness, in the context of cultural systems that change over time and space. As Mary Odell Butler has asked, “How can we establish useful statements of program value given the complex contexts in which programs are implemented? How can we arrive at evaluation results induced from variable manifestations of program concepts in complex cultural systems?” 3 cr.
Spring Semester 2025
GMS MA 701 History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part II)
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Course will address theoretical traditions in medical anthropology, focusing on orientations developed and applied within the field over the past two decades to interpretations of health-related phenomena. 3 cr.
GMS MA 770 IRB Proposal Development and Writing
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Students will learn to write a medical anthropology research proposal and related Institutional Review Board Proposal, through the structure provided by the IRB of BUSM. We will address theory and methods related to the design and review process. 3 cr.
GMS MA 735 Writing Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
Prereq: Permission of Instructor. This seminar builds on GMS MA 734 (Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology), turning the focus to the actual craft of writing ethnography. It is an integral part of MACCP students’ thesis-writing training. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. Through a series of exercises that draw on their own field notes and participant observations, students learn to employ three genres of cultural representation—realist tales, confessional tales, and impressionist tales. Students will explore their own authorial voice and style, and their relationship with truth, objectivity, and point-of-view. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr.
GMS MA 786 Final Project Writing Seminar
Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar will train learners in the theory and practice of writing up medical anthropology research findings, and of writing ethnography. The course emphasizes analytical writing. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr.
GMS MA 605 History of Medicine and Healing in the United States
This course explores the history of therapeutic pluralism in the United States, beginning with the colonial period and continuing to the present. We will examine how this therapeutic pluralism necessarily includes the story of American religious pluralism, the rise of biomedicine, and the changing faces of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), while factoring in the roles of class, race, and gender. We will work with primary source materials, as well as sources from history of medicine, and medical anthropology. 4 cr.
GMS MA 650 Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
This medical anthropology course examines the history, culture, and politics that shape health care work and organizations. Beginning with the notion of “competencies” in biomedical training, this course examines the models of professional enculturation and competition in established and emerging health professions. The course will focus on the conceptual and embodied formation of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and collaboration between professional and nonprofessional caregivers; examining in particular the discourse of “cultural competence.” Readings include autobiographical and ethnographic accounts of healthcare professionals, staff, and family caregivers. Students conduct qualitative interviews with a variety of health care workers to analyze specific cultural and political contexts of care and health professional education. 3 cr.
GMS MA 678: Reproductive Anthropology
Reproductive Anthropology can encompass all aspects of human reproduction and sexual/reproductive health. These include: adolescent sexuality, fertility, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, birthing, adoption, breastfeeding, the health needs of LGBTQ communities, assisted reproductive technologies, masculinity & male infertility, reproductive health care in and across various care settings. Each of these topics can be explored in varying sociocultural and political-economic contexts locally, nationally, and internationally, in relation to the roles of race, class, gender, and nationality in all of the above, and many other topics. Any issue, practice, illness, trend, or debate that combines human behavior and reproductive health or ability is fertile ground for medical anthropology examination from evolutionary, biocultural, and critical-medical perspectives. 3 cr.
Electives Offered Every Year:
Fall
GMS MA 640: The Cultural Formation of the Clinician: Implications for Practice
This course will provide a context for exploring and reflecting on one’s own cultural formation in relation to such topics as gender, sexual orientation, race, class, religion, body size, and other areas where there are the greatest risks for health disparities through unexamined bias. The course examines the values one brings into one’s practice as a care provider, and how they influence one’s personal and professional life, including responses to diverse patient cultures. 3 cr.
GMS MA 670 Health and Power in Latin America and the Caribbean
The aim of this course is to examine the socio-political, economic, historical and public health dimensions that have promoted or jeopardized people’s wellbeing in Latin America and the Caribbean. This course will introduce students to historical and contemporary debates around the right to health in this region. We will explore the origin and theoretical foundations of the social movement known as Latin American Social Medicine (LASM) and the historical role it has played in promoting health and advancing the right to health in Latin America. Students will explore the political economy of health theory, and the theoretical frameworks of critical medical anthropology and of LASM to study health and disease. Ethnographies and accompanying articles from various disciplines will guide a critical exploration of the connections between health disparities, social justice, and health as a human right in the region. 3 cr.
GMS MA 677: Special Topics in Medical Anthropology: Program Evaluation for Social Scientists
This course will examine different approaches to applying the tools and methods of anthropology to evaluating programs. Evaluation anthropology takes an integrated approach that examines meanings of program efficacy and effectiveness, in the context of cultural systems that change over time and space. As Mary Odell Butler has asked, “How can we establish useful statements of program value given the complex contexts in which programs are implemented? How can we arrive at evaluation results induced from variable manifestations of program concepts in complex cultural systems?” 3 cr.
Spring
GMS MA 677: Special Topics in Medical Anthropology: Epidemiology for Social Scientists
This seminar focuses on selected issues in medical anthropology. This semester, the course will introduce epidemiologic theories and methods to students who are in the social sciences and humanities. The course seeks to systematically analyze the field of epidemiology and how the discipline is leveraged in a spectrum of health arenas. We will examine core topics and concepts such as causality, associations, confounding and interactions, as well as review epidemiologic study designs, as a way to critically engage with the epidemiologic activity of quantitative analysis toward specific public health aims and objectives. Students will be encouraged to approach epidemiologic methods and theories with a critical eye toward recognizing the assumptions, disciplinary power and actions that epidemiologists take to achieve their mission and vision for health and wellbeing. 3 cr.
GMS MA 678: Reproductive Anthropology
Reproductive Anthropology can encompass all aspects of human reproduction and sexual/reproductive health. These include: adolescent sexuality, fertility, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, birthing, adoption, breastfeeding, the health needs of LGBTQ communities, assisted reproductive technologies, masculinity & male infertility, reproductive health care in and across various care settings. Each of these topics can be explored in varying sociocultural and political-economic contexts locally, nationally, and internationally, in relation to the roles of race, class, gender, and nationality in all of the above, and many other topics. Any issue, practice, illness, trend, or debate that combines human behavior and reproductive health or ability is fertile ground for medical anthropology examination from evolutionary, biocultural, and critical-medical perspectives. 3 credits.. 3 cr.
Links for Other Potential BU Electives
Courses offered through our Division, Graduate Medical Sciences (http://www.bu.edu/academics/gms/courses/). The Division expects that, if a course in which you are interested is offered both through GMS and another program, and is essentially identical in content, that you will register for the GMS version. (If you have questions, do please talk with your advisor.) If you identify a course you want to take, you might want to check with that particular program to be sure it is being offered, as course listings are occasionally out of date.
The School of Public Health (http://www.bu.edu/sph/academics/departments/).
Courses offered on the Charles River Campus, through departments with complementary resources (http://www.bu.edu/academics/degree-programs/).
You may also want to look through information about the university’s different Centers and Institutes, to get an overview of different concentrations, faculties, and interest groups (http://www.bu.edu/academics/schools-colleges/).
If you have trouble locating courses in areas of interest to you, contact your adviser, as there are search tools he or she can use on your behalf.