RLGN 273: Religion and Healing in the U.S.
Spring 2008, TR 1:15-2:30/Sears 540
Instructor: Professor Joy R. BosticEmail: Office: Mather House 303 Phone: 368-2382 Office Hours: T/R 3-4 and by appt.
Course Description and Requirements: In this course we will engage in a cross-cultural exploration of the relationships between religion, health and healing in the United States. Drawing upon interdisciplinary approaches that include religious and ritual studies, medical anthropology, history, ethnic and gender studies, we will examine diverse health-related world views and definitions for health and well being. We will also investigate religious views of personhood and how different traditions interpret and assign meaning to illness and suffering. In addition, we will explore how individuals and groups utilize healing systems and religious practices to address matters of disease and affliction. Throughout the course we will discuss the implications of the issues raised for health care systems and providers. Course requirements are as follows:
1.In Class Participation (15%):In this course we are all members of a community. Each of us is an integral part of this community and its collective process. It is important, therefore,to be presentand on time for all class sessions and to have completed all of the assigned readings. Please bring assigned readings to class so that we can refer to them during our discussions. Absences, except in the case of emergencies, must be arranged in advance. Attendance will be taken each day. I will allow two unexcused absences when I am notified in advance.
2.Oral Assignment on Healing Perspective (10%): Interview someone in your family or local community about their views on healing, suffering and illness. Give a five minute oral report on your findings.
3.Short Written Assignment—What Kind of Researcher Am I? (10%)due on Feb. 14th.
4.Journal (20%): You will write weekly reflections on readings, presentations, field trips, etc. I will collect the journals periodically to check the progress of your work. Completed Journals are due on April 17th.
5.Oral Presentation (15%): You will give a 10-15 minute oral presentation on your final project.
6.Project Paper (30%): You will write a 12-15 page paper on a field project. Your final project paper is due May 1st.
Required Texts
- Linda L. Barns and Susan S. Sered, eds. Religion and Healing in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Anne Fadiman. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and a Collision of Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
- Stephanie Mitchem. African American Folk Healing. New York: New York University Press, 2007.
Course Schedule
Introduction: Strategies, Methods, Issues and Definitions
Jan. 15Course Introduction
Jan. 17Readings: Susan S. Sered andLinda L. Barnes, “Introduction,” and Harold G. Koenig, “Afterword: a Physician’s Reflections,” ch. 31 in Religion and Healing in America, Linda L. Barnes and Susan S. Sered, eds. (Hereafter, “Barnes and Sered”)
Jan. 22Readings: Eric J. Bailey, “Medical Anthropology and Healthcare” in Medical Anthropology and African American Health; “Religion and the Use of Health Services” in Handbook of Religion and Health, Harold G. Koenig, et. al., eds.
Jan. 24Readings:Aana Marie Vigen, “U.S. Healthcare 101: What Everyone Ought to Know about How U.S. Inhabitants are Treated (or Not)” in Women, Ethics and Inequality in U.S. Healthcare
Health-Related World Views: Healing, Suffering and Definitions of Personhood
Jan. 29Readings: Bailey “Ethnic Populations in the United States: Health Beliefs and Treatment Action,” and “African American Alternative Medicine,” in African American Alternative Medicine; Janelle S. Taylor, “Confronting ‘Culture’ in Medicine’s Culture of No Culture,” in Academic Medicine, June 2003
**Oral Reports on Healing Perspectives**
Jan. 31Readings: David Kinsley, “Healing in Contemporary North American Christianity,” in Health, Healing, and Religion: A Cross-Cultural Perspective; Kaja Finkler, “The Healing Genes,” ch. 29 in Barnes and Sered
**Oral Reports on Healing Perspectives**
Domestic and Public Sites of Healing
Feb. 5Readings: Robert A. Orsi, “ The Cult of the Saints and the Reimagination of the Space and Time of Sickness in 20th Century American Catholicism,” Bobbie McKay and Lewis A. Musil, “The ‘Spiritual Healing Project’: A Study of Spiritual Healing in the United Church of Christ,” chs. 1-2 in Barnes and Sered
Feb. 7Readings: Jennifer L. Hollis, “Healing into Wholeness in the Episcopal Church,” and Patrick A. Polk, et. al, “Miraculous Migrants to the City of Angels: Perceptions of El Santo Niño de Atocha and San Simón as Sources of Health and Healing,” chs. 5 and 7 in Barnes and Sered
Gender and Structural Violence
Feb. 12Readings: “Communing with the Dead: Spiritual and Cultural Healing in Chicano/a Communities,” and Thomas J. Csordas, “Gender and Healing in Navajo Society,” chs. 10 and 18 in Barnes and Sered
Feb. 14Readings: Gastón Espinosa, “’God Made a Miracle in My Life’ Latino Pentecostal Healing in the Borderlands,” and Stephanie Y. Mitchem, “Jesus is my Doctor: Healing and Religion in African American Women’s Lives,” chs. 7 and 17 in Barnes and Sered; Gastón Espinosa,“Tongues and Healing at the Azusa Street Revival,” inReligions of the United States in Practice, Vol. 2
**What Kind of Researcher Am I? Written Report Due**
Feb. 19Readings: Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola (Excerpts); “Making Wanga: Reality Constructions and the Magical Manipulation of Power,” ch. 10 in Barnes and Sered
Feb. 21Video: Legacy of the Spirits
Mixing and Matching: Conflict,Synergy, and Appropriation
Feb. 26 Readings: Stephanie Y. Mitchem, chs. 4 and 6 in African American Folk Healing (Hereafter, “Mitchem”)
**Project Proposals Due**
Feb.28Readings: Mitchem, ch.7 and “Conclusion”
March 4Readings: Ann Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down;Phua Xiong, et. al. “Hmong Shamanism: Animist Spiritual Healing in America’s Urban Heartland,” ch. 27 in Barnes and Sered
March 6Readings:The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, cont.
March 10-14No Class--Spring Break
March 18Readings: Claude F. Jacobs, “Rituals of Healing in African American Spiritual Churches,” Robert Fuller, “Subtle Energies and the American Metaphysical Tradition,” chs. 20 and 23 in Barnes and Sered
March 20 Edith Turner, “Taking Seriously the Nature of Religious Healing in America,” ch. 24 in Barnes and Sered
Healing Narratives: Health Care Decisions and Healing Practices
March 25Readings: Aana Marie Vigen, Excerpts from Women, Ethics and Inequality in U.S. Healthcare
March 27Readings: Susan Kuner, et. al., Speak the Language of Healing:
April 1Readings: Selections from Religious Traditions and Health Care Decisions Handbook Series
April 3Readings: Selections from Religious Traditions and Health Care Decisions Handbook Series, cont.
April 8Readings: TBA
Conversations with Practitioners
April 10Readings:TBA
Conversations with Practitioners, cont.
April 15/17 Oral Presentations on Student Research Projects
**Completed Journals Due: April 17th **
April 22Oral Presentations on Student Research Projects
April 24Course Wrap-Up
**Project Papers Due May 1st**
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