Anthropology of the Body

ANTH 407 – Winter 2009

Eugene Raikhel

eugene.raikhel@mail.mcgill.ca

Seminar:

Wednesdays 2:35 - 5:25 PM;

3647 Peel Street – Room 102Office hours:

Wednesdays 10:00 – 12:00 AM; 3647 Peel Street – Room 209In this upper-level seminar in medical anthropology, we will examine “the body” as ahistorically and culturally contingent category, a material locus of practices and an objectof fashioning and self-identification. What is “body” in relation to “mind”? Can we dowithout these distinctions and, if so, what is there to replace them? Is it possible for ethnography to capture bodily experience in a way which does not reduce it torepresentation? How does “culture” shape the body? How are new medical technologieschanging the ways in which people think about and inhabit their bodies? What would itmean for anthropology and social theory to start from an understanding of human beingsas embodied, sentient beings? In this course we will address these and other questionsthrough lectures, close readings and discussions of key texts and writing assignments.The readings for each class session correspond to the lecture and discussion for thatweek. I will begin each session by lecturing for about one hour, giving some backgroundand context to that week’s readings. After a short break, a team of two students will givea presentation on the themes and issues in the readings. The rest of the session will bedevoted to a discussion of the readings.

Course requirements:

Participation

– 20% Active participation and discussion is very important to thiscourse. It is expected that you will come to each class having read all of theassigned texts and with several discussion questions. You will be marked downfor more than one unexcused absence.2.

In class presentation

– 20% Along with a partner, each of you will give one 15-20 minute presentation of the readings for a particular week. This should be a presentation of the themes, issues or problems that run through all of the readings,not a summary of the texts. Your presentation will also serve to open our discussion, so please prepare some discussion questions for the class.3.

Reading response

– 20% of grade. You will write a reading response on the textsfor one of the first seven weeks. Like the presentation, this should not be asummary of the readings but an analysis of a particular issue or debate in thereadings for one week. You may

not

write about the reading for the week you are presenting. The reading response should be turned in on February 18 or earlier.1500-1700 words.4.

Research paper

– 40% You will write a research paper on a topic you chooserelated to the content of the course. A one-page prospectus will be due after break on March 4. A preliminary draft will be due on April 1, when you will be teamedup with a classmate for peer-review. The final paper is due on the last day of class,April 8. 4500-5000 words

Readings:

Required text – available at the McGill Bookstore and on 3-hour reserve in theHumanities and Social Sciences Library:Lock, Margaret M and Judith Farquhar. 2007.

Beyond the body proper: Reading theanthropology of material life.

Duke University Press.All other readings will be available for you to download from WebCT.

Lectures and readings:

Week 1 – Jan 7

Introduction and course logisticsWeek 2 – Thursday, Jan 15 at 6:00 PMThe social organism and body techniques

Scheper-Hughes, N and M M Lock.1987 The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon toFuture Work in Medical Anthropology.

Medical Anthropology Quarterly

1 (1): 6-41.Mauss, Marcel. 1935, “Techniques of the Body,” In Lock, M.M. & Farquhar, J.,eds.,

Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life,

Duke UniversityPress. (

BBP

)

pp.50-68

Douglas, Mary. 1970. “The Two Bodies.” pp. 65-81 in Natural Symbols:Explorations in Cosmology. New York: Pantheon.Turner, T. [1980] 2007. “The social skin.”

BBP

pp. 83-103.

Week 3 – Jan 21Phenomenology and embodiment

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. [1947] 2007. from The Phenomenology of Perception,

BBP

pp.133-149.Bourdieu, P. 1994. “Structures, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theory of SymbolicPower,” in

Cultures, Power, History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory

, by NicolasDirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry Ortner (Eds.), Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 155-199.Csordas, T J. 1993 Somatic Modes of Attention.

Cultural Anthropology

8 (2): 135-156.

Halliburton, Murphy. 2002 Rethinking Anthropological Studies of the Body: Manasand Bodham in Kerala.

American Anthropologist

104 (4): 1123-1134.

--NO CLASS ON JAN 28— (Session will be made up)Week 4 – Feb. 4Labor and disciplined bodies

Thompson, E.P., 1967, Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism,

BBP

pp.495-511Foucault, Michel. 1984. “Docile Bodies,” “The Means of Correct Training,” and“Panopticism,” in The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York:Pantheon, pp. 179-213.Ong, A. 1998, The Production of Possession: Spirits and the MultinationalCorporation in Malaysia.

BBP

pp. 512-530.Wacquant, Loïc. 1995. “Pugs at Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labor AmongProfessional Boxers.” Body and Society 1-1 (March): 65-94.

Week 5 – Make-up session – Monday February 9, 6:00-8:45 PMSex and gender

Film:

Sex: Unknown

, Nova, 2001.See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gender/

Week 6 – Feb 11Sex, gender and local biologies

Barlow, T. 1994. Theorizing Woman: Funü, Guojia, Jiating. In

Body, subject and power in china.

Ed. T Barlow and A Zito. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press. pp. 253-89.Martin, Emily. 1991. “Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed aRomance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles,”

BBP.

Lock, M. & Kaufert, P., 2001, Menopause, local biologies, and cultures of aging,

American Journal of Human Biology

, 13(4), pp. 494-504.