School of Arts and Sciences
Department of Anthropology

Minor in Medical Anthropology

The Minor in Medical Anthropology provides students with a basic understanding of the social and cultural components of health, illness, disease, healing, and medicine, emphasizing relationships between systems of knowledge, therapeutics, social structures, and human experience. As with all cultural anthropology subfields, medical anthropology takes a contextual and intersectional approach, considering relationships among race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and other vectors of social experience as they pertain to illness and healing. The minor introduces students to a range of foundational concepts, including theories and methods in medical anthropology, as well as more advanced offerings.

Advisor: Professor Sarah Pinto

Program Requirements and Policies

Five courses are required for the Minor in Medical Anthropology (at least 15 credits). 

Course Requirements

Gateway Course

One gateway course in cultural anthropology (designated by the department in range of ANTH 10-ANTH 39):

  • ANTH 10 Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology
  • ANTH 12 Gender in World Cultures
  • ANTH 15 Indigenous Movements in the Americas and Beyond
  • ANTH 16 Introduction to Latinx Cultures
  • ANTH 18 Growing up Latino/a
  • ANTH 20 Global Cities
  • ANTH 24 Anthropology of the Environment
  • ANTH 25 Anthropology and Armed Conflict
  • ANTH 26 Anthropology of Socialism & Postsocialism
  • ANTH 27 Human Rights and Justice in Cultural Context
  • ANTH 28 Anthropology of Capitalism
  • ANTH 29 Kinship: Living in Relation
  • ANTH 32 Introduction to the Anthropology of Science and Technology
  • ANTH 39 Gateway Course in Sociocultural Anthropology (Varies by semester - refer to course guide)

Theory Course

One required anthropological theory course that all students must take (ANTH 130):

  • ANTH 130 Anthropological Thought

Core Course

One required medical anthropology course that all students must take (ANTH 148):

  • ANTH 148: Medical Anthropology

Related Courses

Two additional courses in medical anthropology (designated by the department):

  • ANTH 32 Introduction to the Anthropology of Science and Technology
  • ANTH 40 Biological Anthropology
  • ANTH 126 Food, Nutrition, and Culture
  • ANTH 140 Food Justice
  • ANTH 149-02 Disability in Anthropological Perspective
  • ANTH 150 Human Evolution
  • ANTH 151 Experimental Cultures
  • ANTH 152 Biopolitics & the Body: Life, Power, Knowledge 
  • ANTH 153 Medicine, Bodies, and Minds in South Asia
  • ANTH 156 (MUS 159) Music, Trance, & Consciousness
  • ANTH 161 Fieldwork Lab
  • ANTH 171 Death, Mourning, Afterlives: Global Perspectives
  • ANTH 174 Thinking with Plants: Plants, People, and Society
  • ANTH 176 Advanced Topics in Medical Anthropology
  • ANTH 179 Building Babies and the Evolution of Childhood
  • ANTH 182 Human Physique
  • ANTH 185-01 Current Topics In Anthropology: Evolutionary Medicine
  • ANTH 185-03 Current Topics In Anthropology: Pollution and Perseverance
  • ANTH 185-04 Current Topics In Anthropology: Science and Society in South Asia
  • ANTH 188 Culture, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Madness
  • BIO 183    Darwinian Medicine Seminar