Dr. Brian Dolan

This course examines different theories and research methods developed in anthropology, history and sociology to demonstrate how particular conceptual paradigms are adapted for use by different disciplines. Through comparative readings, this course traces the intellectual foundations of medical anthropology, history and sociology.”

• Objectives:
  Describe the core theories developed in anthropology, history and sociology used to analyze the production of scientific and medical knowledge.
• Explain how core theories developed in anthropology, history and sociology were applied in the analysis of the production of scientific and medical knowledge.
• Recognize how core theories in anthropology, history and sociology were adapted for use by, and moved between, the different academic disciplines.
• Compare and contrast different forms of evidence used by anthropologists, historians and sociologists to support their arguments and the different methodologies of research employed by them. 
• Examine how 'classic' theoriests in anthropology, history and sociology presented evidence of the culturally-specific conditions that have affected the production of scientific and medical knowledge.
• Synthesize the ideas presented throughout the course in the preparation of a final term paper to demonstrate one's grasp of how different academic disciplines translate and adapt ideas from one another for research and framing conclusions.

General course plan (tentative): The students will have a very active role in deciding what we read, since each will act as a representative of their own discipline while also relinquishing their bond to that discipline momentarily to get into the world-view of another discipline. It is somewhat experimental, but the point is actually to expose similarities of intellectual inquiry in light of methodological variation.

PART I: What is your point? (AKA, so what?)
What are the different notions of applied qualitative research? Is it a critique or does it complement scientific research? What are the various arguments for the moral responsibility that researchers have towards effecting change in the world? What is the difference in “justification” for our work relative to arguments about the importance of theory as opposed to practice in research design?

PART II: How did disciplines happen?
When we look at the creation of sub-specialties such as history of science/medicine (within history), medical anthropology (a branch of anthropology), and medical sociology (a focus for sociology), we will look at what kinds of questions were asked by pioneers in these fields to see what made them unique. This section examines the intellectual foundations of our specialties with an eye toward discerning what kind of context each was responding to and how diverse theories about the work of future practitioners subsequently developed.

PART III: Tracing interdisciplinary fashions.
This part of the course examines the work of certain theorists and writers who have influenced the fields in different ways, such as Foucault, Latour, Rose, and others including classical theorists. The point is not to analyze their work, but to trace various ways that their work has helped to shape the intellectual agenda of the different disciplines in slightly different ways. This part of the course is structured around keywords, some provided in advance, some provided by the students in the course.

PART IV: Drawing things together?
The concluding part of the course steps back to see what big questions face the different disciplines and what trends are emerging in each to address them, such as the return of ‘grand narrative’ in qualitative writing, the epistemology of data collection, and the ideas about the audience for one’s work.

PART ONE: WHAT IS YOUR POINT?

Week One: Introduction: How it works

Readings

Appleby, Joyce, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob. Telling the Truth about History. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994.

Geertz, Clifford. "From the Native's Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding." Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28, no. 1 (1974): 26-45.

Nye, RobertA. "The Bio-Medical Origins of Urban Sociology." Journal of Contemporary History 20, no. 4 (January 1, 1985): 659-675.

Discussion topics

Pre-circulated student Questionnaire
How do historians work?
How do anthropologists work?
How do sociologists work?

Keywords

Objectivity
Point of View
Representation
Teleology
Contingency

Week Two: Observation, Anecdote, Data

Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." In The Interpretation of Cultures, 412-453. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Geertz, Clifford. "Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought." In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 19-35. New York: Basic Books, 1983.        

Clifford, James. "On Ethnographic Authority." Representations no. 2 (Spring, 1983): 118-146.
Biersack, Aletta. "Local Knowledge, Local History: Geertz and Beyond." In The New Cultural History, edited by Lynn Hunt, 72-96. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Keywords

Fact
Authority
Observation
Positivism

Week Three: On Narrative

Marcus, G. E. and D. Cushman. "Ethnographies as Text." Annual Review of Anthropology 11, (1982): 25-69.

Richardson, Laurel. "Narrative and Sociology." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 19, no. 1 (1990): 119-135.

Laqueur, Thomas. "Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative." In The New Cultural History, edited by Lynn Hunt, 176-204. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Behar, Ruth. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

PART TWO: HOW DID DISCIPLINES HAPPEN?

Week Four: Forward-looking creations

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Margaret M. Lock. "The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1, no. 1 (Mar., 1987): 6-41.

Bloom, Samuel. Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology. Diane Pub Co., 2002. 

Cooter, Roger. "After Death - After 'Life': The Social History of Medicine in Post-Postmodernity." Social History of Medicine 20, no. 3 (2007): 441-464.

Davis, Natalie Z. "Anthropology and History in the 1980s." In The New History: The 1980s and Beyond, edited by Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg, 267-275. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.

Week Five: The Classics

Readings TBD

PART THREE: TRACING INTERDISCIPLINARY FASHIONS

Student-led presentations and reading assignments

Week Six:

TBD _____________________________________

TBD _____________________________________

Week Seven:

{Kelly Knight – Canguilhem, Normal and Pathological}

+ TBD _____________________________________

Week Eight:

{A.B. Wilkinson – TBD }

+ TBD _____________________________________


PART FOUR: DRAWING THINGS TOGETHER?

Week Nine: Cross Interpretation
Sahlins, Marshall. "Other Times, Other Customs: The Anthropology of History." In Islands of History, 32-72. London: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Geertz, Clifford. "Distinguished Lecture: Anti Anti-Relativism." American Anthropologist 86, no. 2 (Jun., 1984): 263-278.

Week Ten: Making the connections: “So what?”

Readings: Praxis, TBD