Magic of Despair: Terror, Colonialism and Healing
ANTH 222
Fall 2026
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01
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This course proceeds through the haunted lens of colonial medicine and its afterlives. The course investigates both the ways in which madness, sorcery, and healing became entangled in the racial logics of empire. Drawing on anthropological theory, historical texts, and critical insights from Black critical thought, the course investigates the production of subjectivities that emerge from encounters between colonizer and colonize, doctor and patient, body and world. Tracking the appearance of ancestors, witchcraft, possession, and cults of affliction across colonial and contemporary ethnographies, we consider how constructions of health and pathology were means of colonial governmentality and came to constitute the ethical terrain of colonial capitalist modernity. The course concludes with reflections that trace connections between the concepts of neurodiversity, disability and decolonization. The course is especially focused on Africa and its diaspora. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ANTH |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (Anthropology) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
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