The concepts of "health" and "illness" are culturally constructed. This course will examine beliefs about these states of being, and the ways in which they are both products and illustrations of the larger social system in which they are found. Ideas about the history of disease, social construction of the body, illness causation, therapies and therapists, healing symbols and rituals, and the social roles of patients and healers will be explored. In addition to examining these beliefs and processes cross-culturally, we will also draw upon examples from Western biomedicine — among them cancer, AIDS, autism, schizophrenia — to illustrate the powerful ways in which illness and culture are bound together.