ANTH 357 - Disrupted Lives: The Anthropology of Social Suffering

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Through ethnographies and other texts (both written and filmic), this course explores the anthropology of social suffering, from acts of disruption to the possibility of reconciliation. From war, political violence, state terror, and marginalization to chronic illnesses, disability, addictions, and other forms of embodied distress, how is suffering collectively and individually experienced? Is it possible for broken communities and dispirited lives to heal? The focus is on everyday life–how painful events are culturally constructed and socially healed in the realm of the ordinary. Includes independent and active learning components. Odd years Spring.