Cultural Perspectives on Health, Lifestyle and Medicine

The course examines questions of health, lifestyle and medicine from cultural analytical and ethnographic perspectives. The course approaches different urgent societal issues relating to illness, diagnosis and wellbeing in contemporary and historical societies. These issues are discussed in relation to different cases: the meeting between doctor and patient, living with chronic disease, controversial biotechnological diagnoses and treatments, discourses on risk and responsibility, etc. The course is based on current research in ethnology, medical anthropology and cultural studies, including questions about the body, illness experiences, disability, ethics and the new health economy. Theoretical understanding of how aspects of identity, class, gender, ethnicity and age intervene in medical treatments and lifestyle patterns will be offered in lectures, seminars and group exercises. On completion of the course the students will have insight into the cultural dimensions of illness and health.