College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Department of Religion

Rel 86
(IS) Religion and Medicine
MW 4:30-5:55 Roosevelt 109 (formerly Davison 0014)

Ann Burlein
104 K Heger Hall
516-483-7238
Ann.Burlein@Hofstra.edu
Office Hours:
M and W 2:00-3:00 or by appointment

Course Schedule | Semester Project

Assignments -- Grading Policy -- Late Work

Course Description:
The goal of this course is to introduce you to the overlap between medicine and religion, and to equip you with skills for negotiating issues that arise in health care due to religious diversity. A key element of the course will focus on developing an interdisciplinary perspective: not only will we read in multiple disciplines, we will evaluate the different approaches (in terms of what each discipline enables you to see and what it might close off).

Books to buy:

• Arthur Frank, The Wounded Storyteller, University of Chicago, 1997. (Sociology)
• Michel Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, Vintage, 1973 (translation). (Philosophy)
• Michel Foucault, History of Madness, Routledge, 2006 (translation). (Philosophy)
• Margaret Lock, Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death, Univ of California, 2002. (Anthropology)

Body Landscapes

Michel Foucault, Birth of the Clinic.

• Preface: read ix-xv, stop at the paragraph that begins "A detour..." and then start again at the very last line of page xvii "I should like to to attempt here" and continue to end of preface
• conclusion, pages 195-199.

Daily writing assignments begin today. Your prompt: a) What is the problem that Foucault is trying to get us to notice? b) Point to a place in the reading (you might not understand it!) where he addresses that problem.

You will hand in your daily writing for feedback -- if you are out of the ballpark, you can re-write it!

Writing prompt: a) What is the problem that Foucault is trying to get you to see? b) Discuss a place in the text where that problem comes up from which you learned something new (preferably about religion and medicine, but not necessarily!).

Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, "Open Up a Few Corpses," 124-148.

Writing prompt: Foucault argues that our relation to death changed (when doctors see death in the practice of autopsy), and therefore our experience of our bodies changed. a) Explain the change. Either: b) Discuss a place in the text OR b) Give an example from your own life (or someone you know).

Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, "The Visible Invisible"

• read first paragraph of page 149 only and then
• skip to the bottom paragraph on page 152 ("These principles define the rules" and continue to the end of the chapter on page172.

Small group bulletin boards begin today!
Writing prompt: "Knowledge invents the secret."

Review Day: Death, the Secret Volume of the Body, and the Gaze

Read Conclusion, 195-199.

Writing prompt: What do you "get" on this reading of the conclusion, that you did not "get" your first time through?

Margaret Lock, "Theoretical and Philosophical Foundations of East Asian Medicine," in East Asian Medicine in Urban Japan (Berkeley: Univ of CA, 1980), 27-49.

Writing prompt: Compare OR contrast (too much to do both!) the philosophical foundations of east Asian medicine with the philosophical foundations of clinical medicine as Foucault studied it.

Paul Unschuld, What is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing, chapters 11 through 21, pages 36 - 64.

Writing prompt: Compare the problem that Unschuld is trying to address with the problem that Foucault sought to address.

Review your independent project choices -- we will set a date for your first project in class.

Margaret Lock, Twice Dead (Berkeley, UC, 2002), Preamble 1-13 AND out of Chapter One "Boundary Transgressions and Moral Uncertainty" pages 39-46 and 51-53.

Writing prompt: Our goal in reading Lock is comparative. When you compare and contrast, you FIRST stand in a vantage point from which you look at two cultures. Comparison can go awry when the vantage point is unfair – when it privileges the point of view of one entity over the other. With that in mind, explain what is awry or prejudicial, according to Lock, in our usual (American) way of understanding Japanese unease with, and even rejection of, organ transplant and the notion of brain death? 

Hand in (in writing) your decision for which kind of independent project you have chosen to do for your first one.

Margaret Lock, Twice Dead, 103-164.

Writing prompt: Contrast the easy and indifferent Western acceptance of organ transplant and brain death with Japanese unease.

Margaret Lock, Twice Dead, 191-234.

Writing prompt: Compare and/or contrast an aspect of modern Japanese views of death with Foucault's analysis of modern death in the West. A tip: The point of comparing and contrasting is to help you see the two cultures better by constructing a vantage point from which you look at both. Your goal is to find a vantage point from which to underswtand each better -- do NOT simply list ways they are alike and ways they are different. For example: Are they different ways of handling the same problem? Or does death present a different problem in these two societies?

Margaret Lock, Twice Dead, 291-344.

Writing prompt: Lock uses the notion of "gift" as her vantage point from which to make sense of the ease of Western acceptance of organ transplant and brain death in contrast to the unease of Japanese society regarding organ transplant and brain death. Discuss the aspect of her argument that you find either: a) most convincing, b) most surprising, or c) most disturbing.

Foucault, History of Madness, "Stultifera Navis," 3-43.

Writing prompt In this chapter, Foucault draws on a great wealth of detail so that you "get" a very different view of madness from our own (mental illness). Your task is to demonstrate to me what you "got" of the Middle Age and Renaissance take on madness. I do not care how you do it. Draw me a picture. Write me a poem. Photograph something. Tell me a story. Or, do the usual thing and write me a paper! However you do it, be sure to conclude by writing a paragraph in which you reflect on the kind of data (art or poetry or ...) he uses: what are the pros and cons of this data?

Foucault, History of Madness, "The Great Confinement," 44-77.
Class will meet in Breslin 020 so that we have tech capability.

Writing prompt. In this chapter, we get a contrast to the medieval take on madness. Take a vantage point: identify a change in how people viewed madness that you think is a major change and discuss it.

Your first independent project is due at the start of class!!

Foucault, History of Madness, 'The Correctional World,"78-107.

Class will meet in Breslin 020 so that we have tech capability. Kasey Mortimer will give her talk on Islam.

Writing prompt; This chapter is filled with great material. Discuss something that surprised or intrigued you -- be sure to tell me what about it was surprising or intriguing... that is, what is intellectually to you about this topic? Whatever you choose, be sure to conclude by reflecting on his use -- as a philosopher -- of historical data: what does it let him see (or get) that he would not see (or get) if he did straight philosophy?

Foucault, History of Madness,"Birth of the Asylum," 463-511.

Class will meet in Breslin 020 so that we have tech capability. Adriana Perisa will talk about Jehovah's Witnesses.

Writing prompt: What does Foucault think about the standard history according to which science is a story of progress and freedom? Why does he think that? (Note: this is where he uses philosophy to critique history-writing).

W Nov 30 -- Anthropology

Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman, "Somaticization: The Interconnections in Chinese Society among Culture, Depressive Experiences, and the Meanings of Pain" in Culture and Depression, Kleinman and Good (eds) (Berkeley, University of California, 1985), 429-490.

Reading tips: Read pages 429-435 carefully. When they present the results of their research (From "China research 1980" through Case Illustrations) skim for highlights of how Chinese physicians and patients in the ealry 1980s through about the 2 kinds of neurasethenia (pages 436 - 465).

Class will meet in Breslin 020 so that we have tech capability. Robert DaVolio AND Kayden Wong will present today.

No writing today!

Assignments:

• 10% of your grade will come from attendance and participate. You are expected to 1) attend ALL classes, 2) have read and prepared ALL assignments before coming to class and 3) DISCUSS relevant issues. You have two days to be absent without consequences. On your third day of absence, you lose all benefit of the doubt when it comes to your final grade. For every absence thereafter, you lose 1/3 of a letter grade from your FINAL grade. (This does not mean that you have two cuts. If you cut class twice in the beginning of the semester, and then become sick at the end, karma happens). When you are absent, YOU are responsible to find out from another student what went on in class and for making up the work that you missed.  MAKE FRIENDS.

• 15% comes from reading and interacting with your small group’s online discussion board. You post must be submitted on blakcboard by 2:00 pm of each class day (unless I say otherwise). I will not grade your posts for content (assuming good faith: writing BS that does not talk about the reading AT ALL is a 0; it is as if you did not post). I will grade: do you interact in a substantive and helpful way? Are you trying to wrap your head around the reading? So the scale is minus, check, plus. The idea behind the discussion board is to help you get feedback to improve your comprehension and your daily writing papers. I recommend posting the seeds of your daily writing – not the whole thing, just the idea. As of Nov 2, you have two skips in your SMALL GROUP bulletin board posts.

• 45% of your grade will come from daily discussion papers of 1-2 pages.The first entry you will hand it in immediately and get feedback and have the option of re-writing. After that, you will hand in your daily papers one class day AFTER we have discussed the reading. I will collect them, and from your writing in that section, pick 2 entries that you think are your best; I will definitely grade those. I will pick two entries AT RANDOM and grade those. Your grade for each month will be the average of those 4 entries. You have two skips!!
  After each reading on your syllabus, I have posted a writing prompt. You are not required to follow the prompt, although it is recommended.
  
  The point of these daily writings is to make sure you read (without a test, which for this material is too hard). So if you are not engaging with the concepts in the reading, you will get a F for that paper. But I want you to do more: the point of the papers is to give you a space in which you wrestle with the major concepts of this course. You earn a C if you identify a major concept and discuss it. You earn a B by going beyond telling me what you think – to wrestling with why. Many different kinds of reasons count: cite the text, discuss an example, relate the question to your own life. An A is reserved for excellence – when you go beyond stating your own view to engaging with other perspectives and viewpoints; when you evaluate the pros and cons of your viewpoints; when you articulate a creative and original point of view.

• 30% of your grade will come from 2 independent research projects chosen from the following (15% each). Your first project is due November 14 at the start of class. You can mix and match:
  • Ever wonder why Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions? Why Orthodox Jews do not do autopsies? Pick a religious tradition and make a presentation to the class on the specific health care issues that come up for it. Sources: Park Ridge Center Ill pamphlets (Oversize R724), Tanenbaum, The Medical Manual for Religio-Cultural Competency  (on reserve), if you are working with a Christian tradition, also consult: Ronald Numbers and Darrel Amundsen, Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions (on reserve). (If you are interested in a tradition that is not included in these books (ex paganism), email me – I have other sources!!). Check out the table of contents for these 3 sources. 15% for one tradition. 30% for two. See me re a class day for you to present!
    
  • Interested in illness stories? Read an illness memoir OR fiction about illness. Write a 4-5 page paper in which you use Arthur Frank’s work to help you analyze the narrative. Conclude your analysis by comparing and contrasting the kind of information that Lock gets, as an anthropologist interviewing and observing people, with the kind of information you get from a first person memoir.15% if you do one memoir/ piece of literature; 30% if you do two.
  • Hand in a bibliography of at least 7-10 sources that are illness narratives (first person accounts) written by people from religions other than Christianity.
  • Critical book review. Best is if you do two books, with one book from a different discipline. For each book, you will write 3-5 page review in which you state the thesis, summarize results and then critically evaluate what you read. Conclude by thinking about the pros and cons of each discipline, as it plays out in this particular book. So: If you are doing only one critical review, then you need to compare and contrast it with a reading in class that comes from another discipline. If you are doing 2 book reviews (for your 30%), and have picked two books that go together, you CAN save your compare and contrast of disciplines for your second review (be sure to tell me on your first review!). 15% for one review. 30% for two. List of Books to Choose From.
  • Read Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Write a 3-5 page essay in which you reflect on the issues of diversity and world-travelling raised by this text.
  • Read and write a 3-5 page essay in which you reflect on Janelle Taylor’s critique of Fadiman's view of "culture" in her article “The Story Catches You and You Fall Down” Tragedy, Ethnography and ‘Cultural Competence’ in Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17/2 (2003): 159-181. (You MUST read Fadiman’s book to do this – but you need not have chosen to write an essay about it).
  • Take one of your daily writings, and develop it more fully into a 5-7 page paper.
  • We have been learning a method of comparing and contrasting cultures.
    1) Always compare AND contrast. (Few things are totally the same or totally different. Everyone wants to be treated the same, a.k.a. equally, BUT everyone also wants to be seen as an individual, a.k.a. as different).
    2) The point of comparing and contrasting is to get you to think or see something NEW.  Do NOT make a meaningless list!!
    3) If you are trying to see something new, you are standing somewhere. Think about the vantage point you are constructing (or intuitively assuming). Is it fair to both sides? Does it prejudice one over the other? What needs of YOURS does this vantage point serve? Does it further your prejudices?
    4) Is the vantage point fair to both sides but not to you – that is, does the vantage point let you think about something you care about? 
    Take these 4 steps and sketch (because to do more is too much!) and write a comparison and contrast paper about something that intrigues you. BE SURE TO CONCLUDE by answering the ‘So what?” question – so you compared and contrasted. So what? What did you get? What did you learn?

For something completely different …
Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn incorporates acupuncture into their biomedical care in areas such as stroke, labor and delivery, oncology. You will interview patients regarding their experience of how incorporating acupuncture made a difference (or didn’t) in their treatment. You must be able to get yourself to Lutheran (155 55th St. in Brooklyn -- N or R train) and make a serious commitment (go every 2 weeks). You must also pass a screening interview with me. You will conduct interviews, write up your findings as instructed by your on-site supervisor, and write a final synthetic paper due on exam day of 8-10 pages in which you use the readings from class to reflect on your experience. Because this is such an intense time commitment, this counts as 2 independent research projects AND you will only need to write ONE daily paper per week (but must participate in discussion board for each class day).

Late Work Policy:

In order to return your writing promptly with detailed and constructive feedback, I do not accept late work. You will earn an F and forfeit your right to feedback. If there is an emergency or a tragedy in your life and you need an exception, you must communicate with me BEFORE the due-date.
 

Grading Policies: Studying religion is both an academic and a personal exercise. In your written assignments you will be graded on thinking and argumentation. I will not grade your personal beliefs or non-belief.  Nor will I grade or the particular position you take. I will grade 

• how well you articulate why you (or someone) thinks a particular (and precisely articulated) way
• how closely you read the assigned materials
• how much you are able to make connections between readings
• how much your ability to reflect critically on the position you take grows over time.

0 -- You handed in an assignment that was not your own.
F -- There are two ways to earn an F. Your writing was fantastic -- but late. OR your writing fails to answer the questions, expresses little accurate information, and/ or is not coherent.
D -- shows effort, but the information and explanation are weak. You need to make more references to the readings.
C -- articulates what you think clearly. You need to engage in a more detailed and systematic way with the readings.
B -- explores why you think the way you do. You need to critique yourself (see the next grade level).
A -- reserved for excellence, when you use the material as a springboard for higher level thinking. You engage with other perspectives and counter-arguments. You elaborate a creative and original take on the readings and issues being discussed in class, and you articulate your thoughts in your own voice. You go beyond stating your point of view to evaluate the pros and cons of thinking the way you do.

How I convert letter grades into numbers

Academic Dishonesty: Plagiarism is a serious ethical and professional infraction.  Hofstra’s policy on academic honesty reads: “The academic community assumes that work of any kind [...] is done, entirely, and without assistance, by and only for the individual(s) whose name(s) it bears.”  Please refer to the “Procedure for Handling Violations of Academic Honesty by Undergraduate Students at Hofstra University” for details about what constitutes plagiarism, and Hofstra’s procedures for handling violations. 

This course is dedicated to helping you develop your own thinking. Thus I regard plagiarism as a serious violation of the academic compact, because it involves passing off someone else's thought as your own. This can happen by copying someone else's words or re-phrasing someone else's ideas in your words. Neither is your own thought.

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Disabilities Policy:

If you believe you need accommodations for a disability, please contact Services for Students with Disabilities(SSD). In accordance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, qualified individuals with disabilities will not be discriminated against in any programs, or services available at Hofstra University. Individuals with disabilities are entitled to accommodations designed to facilitate full access to all programs and services. SSD is responsible for coordinating disability-related accommodations and will provide students with documented disabilities accommodation letters, as appropriate.  Since accommodations may require early planning and are not retroactive, please contact SSD as soon as possible. All students are responsible for providing accommodation letters to each instructor and for discussing with him or her the specific accommodations needed and how they can be best implemented in each course.

For more information on services provided by the university and for submission of documentation, please contact the  Services for Students with Disabilities, 212 Memorial Hall, 516-463-7075.

Course Goals:

This course meets the following goals from the Religion Department:

Learning Goal 2 [Comprehension]
Students will be able to differentiate major theoretical approaches to the study of religion

Objectives
a) Students will interrogate ways of understanding “religion”
b) Students will demonstrate use of various approaches to religion

Learning Goal 3 [Analysis]
Students will be able to analyze the social implications of religion

Objectives
a) Students will explain the inseparability of religion and its social context
b) Students will give examples of the links between religion and other dimensions of social life (gender, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, politics, economics, science, technology etc.)

This course meets the following General Education goals:

Goal 1. Students will demonstrate the ability to think critically and creatively.
Goal 2. Students will apply analytical reasoning across academic disciplines.
Goal 3. Students will demonstrate proficiency in written communication.

Page written by Ann Burlein September1 2011.