RELIGN 55
Spirit of Medicine
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of relationship between medicine, religion, and society; how religion is help or hindrance to health; and what health care might look like beyond biomedical clinic. Examination of historical entwinement of religion, medicine, and society in Western antiquity to early modern period; disentanglement in Enlightenment to early 20th century; and confluence of science, technology, and capitalism in biomedicine compartmentalized from religion today. Conceptualization of rhetorics and epistemplogies of healing--what it means to be healed and how one would know--and put in tension with faith healings and religion-as-medicine, medicine-as-religion, and integrated approaches. Analysis of alternatives to biomedical status quo in theoretical medicine and in health care delivery, with particular attention to questions of justice and holistic care in U.S. and of policy and practice globally. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Lectures are just all the professor talking, but you can get good information out of his lectures. He does technically keep repeating the same general idea, but it's not too bad if you're willing to sit through it. Lectures are NOT recorded and slides are not posted (but you don't really need them). There are participation points, but you just being in lectures is good enough (it's okay to miss a few as long as you let him know). There were three papers, but the prompts are well written so you should know what you have to write. There are lots of readings to do, but don't be intimidated by the list of the readings. I ended up not reading everything on the syllabus but just read enough so I could do the papers. If you ever have questions, don't be afraid to ask Professor Gillespie. He is very nice and accommodating, and is willing to help no matter what. He also goes over most of the readings in great detail.
Fall 2022 - Lectures are just all the professor talking, but you can get good information out of his lectures. He does technically keep repeating the same general idea, but it's not too bad if you're willing to sit through it. Lectures are NOT recorded and slides are not posted (but you don't really need them). There are participation points, but you just being in lectures is good enough (it's okay to miss a few as long as you let him know). There were three papers, but the prompts are well written so you should know what you have to write. There are lots of readings to do, but don't be intimidated by the list of the readings. I ended up not reading everything on the syllabus but just read enough so I could do the papers. If you ever have questions, don't be afraid to ask Professor Gillespie. He is very nice and accommodating, and is willing to help no matter what. He also goes over most of the readings in great detail.