Health Sciences

This course introduces students to two ways of making sense of public health. The first is by exploring some of the key sites that are central to the making of public health. The second is through acknowledging that whilst public health (and its sidekick, epidemiology, the study of health across populations) sounds like it would be about actually existing people, it is often about people at the aggregate. In other words, statistics. This course takes a different approach: students study the observable behavior and attitudes of actually existing people—whether in the present or the past. This course introduces students to some key research methodologies in the social sciences and humanities-doing fieldwork, using archives, and unlocking the mysteries of university libraries in order to enable students to understand and master key concepts in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness as part of the practice of medicine; to familiarize students provide students with key debates in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness; to familiarize students with how medical understandings of life, death, and illness have changed over time; to familiarize students with how medical practice and understanding of life, death, and illness differ across cultures.

This course explores gender, sex, and sexuality in a cross-disciplinary environment that promotes a dialogue between both students and academics from different faculties. Teaching sessions comprise combinations of lectures and seminars that juxtapose different approaches to related subtopics, for example by pairing a science-based lecture with a seminar on the representation of gender or sexuality in the arts. These sessions are framed by reflective exercises aimed at identifying areas of overlap as well as gaps and contradictions within these approaches. 

Mental disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia, are prevalent across the globe, significantly impacting individuals and communities. This course explores both the understanding of mental disorders and the psychological treatments used to address them. The first half of the course introduces students to the clinical presentation, etiology, and diagnostic frameworks of various mental disorders, and these disorders are examined through multiple perspectives, including developmental, sociocultural, neurobiological, and psychodynamic approaches. The second half of the course explores a range of psychological treatments, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic Therapy, Humanistic Therapy, and other therapeutic approaches, focusing on their application to specific mental health conditions. Importantly, this course involves research methods in psychology, mental health, and psychotherapy. 

This course explores the ways in which life is lived in relation to experiences of war, violent events, and war-related afflictions and displacement. While students follow and discuss the debates of researchers who have tried to determine and verify the effects of violent conflict on the mental health of those affected by focusing on concepts like war trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), students challenge conventional and universal understandings of trauma, and disease-centered approaches to traumatic experience and health interventions. While this course is heavily informed on comparative history, both of psychiatry and of wars, it engages with current affairs and public health concerns. It considers mental health as both a medical and a socio-political matter. 

This course examines the role of evaluation and epidemiology in health. It introduces key evaluation and epidemiology principles and explores the relevance of these across various health issues and settings.