Guest guest Posted January 12, 2005 Report Share Posted January 12, 2005 Hi Marnae - thanks for the note - I was surprised that you consider Byron Good's Medicine Rationality and Experience to be outdated given the same publishing year of Foucalt's the Birth of the Clinic. Good seems imminently more readable than Foucalt, while Culture and Depression by Kleinman and Good is an expresion of excellence. I would agree that Levi Strauss is somewhat dated but his structuralist model is where these people spring from and his writing is unparalleled. Will > It is delightful to see folks encountering some of the classic (if somewhat > outdated) anthropological perspectives. Probably the material in this > arena that continues to be of greatest value to the medical practitioner > (regardless of their tradition) would be the work of Arthur Kleinman on > professional versus lay models of health and disease, and the model that he > constructed which classifies and contrasts professional perspectives on > disease and patient perspectives on illness. Ultimately a more useful > perspective on the structuralist perspective embodied in Claude > Levi-Strauss' work is presented by Michel Foucault in his arguably > post-structuralist discussion of the evolution of the clinical gaze in the > work entitled The Birth of the Clinic. For folks seriously interested in > discussions of medicine from a cross-cultural perspective we recommend > Culture and Depression (edited by Kleinman and Good). Ted Kaptchuk saw fit > to make use of Kleinman's insights as early as 1987 in his public > presentations and these continue to be fundamental to any serious > discussion of medical anthropology. This is particularly true of > Kleinman's Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture. An individual > with a serious interest in understanding the application of the > anthropological approach to the field of medicine will want to give serious > examination to Robert Hahn's discussion of The World of Internal Medicine: > Portrait of an Internist in Physician's of Western Medicine edited by Hahn > and Gaines. Individuals with interest in bodily representation, an aspect > of medical systems that is not always well explored, may also be interested > in The Expressiveness of the Body by Shigehesa Kuriyama, a protege of > Arthur Kleinman's. Folks who are interested in exploring slightly beyond > the fairly narrow confines of Medical Anthropology may find the radical > critique provided by the anarchist Paul Feyerabend in his manifest Against > Method in which he explores the relationship between state power and the > development of traditional chinese medicine in China particularly > compelling. These are ideas and authors that Kevin and I have been > exposing our students to in the History of Medicine and the History and > Philosophy of Medicine since 1988 and which have informed our research > approaches to Chinese medicine. > > William R. Morris, LAc., OMD, MSEd President, AAOM 310-453-8300 phone 310-829-3838 fax " How do we know it is destiny? Because it is. " This message is a PRIVATE communication. This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, copy, or use it, and do not disclose it to others. Please notify the sender of the delivery error by replying to this message with the word delete in the subject column, and then delete it and any attachments from your system. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 Will - When I referred to outdated, I was referring more to Levi-Strauss' work than Good. L-S' work certainly is still read in both undergrad and graduate anthropology courses, but he is seen as an interesting theoretician with little hands-on work. He was what is termed an " armchair " anthropologist. The structuralist school is still strong and L-S' work certainly relevant, but most structuralists also are aware of the limitations of a strict structuralist take on culture. As far as the " dating " of Foucault vs. Good - both retain their intrinsic value. Foucault, hard as he is to unpack, is a historian who writes about a particular time in French history and how that time seems to have been a moment of change in many social arenas, medicine, psychology, the penal system... He is trying to point out how the nature of these culture shifts will impact the development of a field of endeavor to such a degree that we lose sight of how and why the shift occured. He is not a medical anthropologist per se but a historian philosopher with some very interesting ideas about the development of modern cultural practices in relation to historical happenings. The thing to remember about Good's work, which I think is great and which influenced me a great deal in the mid-late 80's when I first encountered it, is that medicine in the 70's/80's was in a different place than it is today. On one level, his work was written for MD's to help them to understand that culture plays a role in the health and illness of their patients - what a notion! Today, these ideas are much more widely understood - His and Kleinman's work taken together gave physician's a model for how culture might impact health and disease and what to do about it. Good took Kleinman's concept of the Explanatory Model (EM) and tried to help physicians to put it into a graphical picture - the idea was good but usually more work and effort than most physicians were willing to put in. If you are interested in looking at the reading lists from some good Med Anth courses I would be happy to forward them on. You also might want to look at the later work of Lorna Rhodes - Emptying Beds. Marnae At 10:42 AM 1/12/2005, you wrote: >Hi Marnae - thanks for the note - > >I was surprised that you consider Byron Good's Medicine Rationality and >Experience to be outdated given the same publishing year of Foucalt's the >Birth of >the Clinic. Good seems imminently more readable than Foucalt, while Culture >and Depression by Kleinman and Good is an expresion of excellence. I would >agree that Levi Strauss is somewhat dated but his structuralist model is >where >these people spring from and his writing is unparalleled. > > >Will > > > It is delightful to see folks encountering some of the classic (if > somewhat > > outdated) anthropological perspectives. Probably the material in this > > arena that continues to be of greatest value to the medical practitioner > > (regardless of their tradition) would be the work of Arthur Kleinman on > > professional versus lay models of health and disease, and the model > that he > > constructed which classifies and contrasts professional perspectives on > > disease and patient perspectives on illness. Ultimately a more useful > > perspective on the structuralist perspective embodied in Claude > > Levi-Strauss' work is presented by Michel Foucault in his arguably > > post-structuralist discussion of the evolution of the clinical gaze in the > > work entitled The Birth of the Clinic. For folks seriously interested in > > discussions of medicine from a cross-cultural perspective we recommend > > Culture and Depression (edited by Kleinman and Good). Ted Kaptchuk saw > fit > > to make use of Kleinman's insights as early as 1987 in his public > > presentations and these continue to be fundamental to any serious > > discussion of medical anthropology. This is particularly true of > > Kleinman's Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture. An individual > > with a serious interest in understanding the application of the > > anthropological approach to the field of medicine will want to give > serious > > examination to Robert Hahn's discussion of The World of Internal Medicine: > > Portrait of an Internist in Physician's of Western Medicine edited by Hahn > > and Gaines. Individuals with interest in bodily representation, an aspect > > of medical systems that is not always well explored, may also be > interested > > in The Expressiveness of the Body by Shigehesa Kuriyama, a protege of > > Arthur Kleinman's. Folks who are interested in exploring slightly beyond > > the fairly narrow confines of Medical Anthropology may find the radical > > critique provided by the anarchist Paul Feyerabend in his manifest Against > > Method in which he explores the relationship between state power and the > > development of traditional chinese medicine in China particularly > > compelling. These are ideas and authors that Kevin and I have been > > exposing our students to in the History of Medicine and the History and > > Philosophy of Medicine since 1988 and which have informed our research > > approaches to Chinese medicine. > > > > > > >William R. Morris, LAc., OMD, MSEd >President, AAOM >310-453-8300 phone >310-829-3838 fax > > " How do we know it is destiny? Because it is. " > >This message is a PRIVATE communication. This e-mail and any attachments may >be confidential and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended >recipient, do not read, copy, or use it, and do not disclose it to others. >Please >notify the sender of the delivery error by replying to this message with >the word >delete in the subject column, and then delete it and any attachments from >your system. Thank you. > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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