Healing across Cultures

Examination of multiple traditions of healing as recorded across cultures, raising questions about continued vitality and comparisons to allopathic medicine. Study driven by theory (why people heal differently) and praxis (how things are done differently when body or health conceived differently). Broadens thinking about body, health, curing, and performances of healing (as acts and spectacles). Students draw from and contribute to Archive of Healing as database and practical project. Consideration of questions such as how cultural assumptions affect individual’s options for seeking healing; what is dynamic between individual and community health; how changes in conceptions of body affect healing practices in various cultures; how image of and approach to health varies across culture; how healing has been studied previously and new lines of inquiry; if methods of healing are available to everyone regardless of cultural histories of community protocols.

Letter grading.