The course aims at problematizing the experience of epidemics and pandemics via the use of anthropological analytical tools and theoretical approaches. How can we understand infectious diseases, how they spread, how people make sense of them, how they are biopolitically managed in different cultural contexts in relation also to global health from the prism of critical medical anthropology.
- Anthropological approaches of epidemics and global health. Concepts and definitions.
- Stories of epidemics now and then.
- Anthropological approaches of infectious diseases I – Case studies.
- Anthropological approaches of infectious diseases ΙΙ – Infections and inequalities.
- Ethnographies of HIV/AIDS in different contexts.
- The case of HIV/AIDS in the Greek ethnographic context.
- From pandemics to syndemics. Approaching epidemics as a biosocial phenomenon.
- Anthropological readings of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- COVID-19, gender, age, economic status and citizenship
- COVID-19, discipline, resistance and new forms of bio-subjectivity.
- Epidemics, pandemics and the relationship between humans and the environment.
- The global/globalized life, infectious diseases and the challenges towards individual and global health.
- Oral presentations of student essays.
Learning outcomes:
The course specifically aims at:
- Acquiring knowledge of the fields of anthropological inquiry and ethnographic knowledge that focus on the understanding of epidemics and global health.
- Critically engaging with the interdisciplinary discussion regarding epidemics as a biosocial phenomenon.
- Studying ethnographic examples of different kinds of epidemics in various contexts as they are variously experienced and conceptualized and managed by the different politics of healthcare.
General Competences
Working Independently
Production of new research ideas
Criticism and self-criticism
Production of free, creative and inductive thinking
Working in an interdisciplinary environment
Production of free, creative and inductive thinking
Working in an interdisciplinary environment
Syllabi:
Frank Snowden, 2021 (στα ελληνικά). Επιδημίες και κοινωνία. Από τον Μαύρο Θάνατο μέχρι Σήμερα. Πατάκης.
& Notes
General suggested bibliography:
- Kelly A.H., Keck F. & Christos Lynteris, 2019. The Anthropology of Epidemics. Routledge London & New York.
- Farmer, Paul. 1999. Infections and Inequalities. University of California Press.
- Inhorn M.C. & P.J. Brown, 1997. The Anthropology of Infectious Disease. Gordon and Breach. Amsterdam.
- Lock, Margaret, and Vinh-Kim Ngun, 2018. An Anthropology of Biomedicine, 2nd edition. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Aihwa Ong, and Stephen Collier (ed.) 2004. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Wiley-Blackwell.
- Blume, Stuart. 2006. Anti-vaccination movements and their interpretations. Social Science and Medicine 62:628- 642.
- Lindenbaum, S. 2001. Kuru, Prions, and Human Affairs: Thinking About Epidemics. Ann.RevAnthr. 30:363–385.
- Singer, M. 2009. Pathogens Gone Wild? Medical Anthropology and the “Swine Flu” Pandemic, Medical Anthropology 28:3, 199-206.
- Singer, M. & Scott, C. 2003. Syndemics and Public Health: Reconceptualizing Disease in Bio-Social Context, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17(4): 423-441.
Εrwin, H. Ackernecht, 1998. Ιστορία της Ιατρικής. Αθήνα: Μαραθιάς.
- Frank Snowden, 2021 (στα ελληνικά). Επιδημίες και κοινωνία. Από τον Μαύρο Θάνατο μέχρι Σήμερα. Πατάκης.
- William McNeill H. 2021 (στα ελληνικά). Λαοί και Επιδημίες. Παπαδόπουλος.
- Παπαταξιάρχης, E. 2020. Το «Νοικοκυριό», πολιτισμικό αντίδοτο στην πανδημία; Υποθέσεις εργασίας για τον οικιακό χώρο στην υγειονομική κρίση. Σύγχρονα Θέματα, τεύχος 149, σελ. 63-74.
- Κάπολα, Π., Κουζέλης Γ. & Κωνσταντάς Ο. 2020. Αποτυπώσεις σε στιγμές κινδύνου. τοπικά ιθ’. Εταιρεία Μελέτης των Επιστημών του Ανθρώπου.
