Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

For many people, the mention of health and disease in Africa invokes images of a collapsing public health system and millions dying from infectious diseases such as Ebola and AIDS. Focusing on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this course will introduce students to the significant socio-economic, political, and cultural ideas that shaped health and healing in Africa. We will use an interdisciplinary, historical, and anthropological approach to examine diseases, therapies, healing institutions, and conceptions of illness among various African communities. Using case studies in Africa, this course will analyze the interplay between colonialism, race, gender, and health. The case studies will help establish how the colonial racial apartheid system generated the conditions in which epidemics such as Tuberculosis, Malaria, Ebola, Cholera, and AIDS flourished among the socially and economically disadvantaged African communities.

Student Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to: ü Comprehend how political, economic, and social interconnections have shaped the dynamics of disease, medicine, healing, and health over time. ü Synthesize historical literature and scholarly debates on health and well-being in Africa. ü Develop your reading, critical thinking, analytical writing, and communication skills. ü Demonstrate greater awareness of different perspectives and understand how social inequalities arise in the past, present, and future. ü Produce focused scholarly research showing African societies' diverse public health systems and therapeutic practices.

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