Dr. Erin P. Moore Department of Anthropology
Class: KAP 145?
Office KAP 340
, 626 688-7224
Draft Syllabus: (1/6/18)
The Global Performance of Healing: Anthropology 301
Pilgrimage: Walking the Camino de Santiago from Porto Portugal to Galicia, Spain and on to Finesterre
Hiking: Eaton Canyon, Altadena, before our trip, February 24, boots and snack,
April 14 w/pack (8-12:30 each), field trip March 4 (a Sunday in Hollywood, 1-4:30),
Portugal and Spain: Travel May 19th – June 16, 2018
The Global Performance of Healing, PORTUGAL and Spain 2018
This is a Maymester Course for the Spring 2018
We will fly in to Lisbon, rail to Porto and then walk to Santiago, Spain and on to Finesterre on the coast.
Please get D Clearance from me through an interview.
There is “exceptional funding” for Presidential and Trustee scholarship students.
Del Amo funding instead of Soar, $1,000. Non-graduating Seniors, 3.0 GPA, Dornsife Major
See our blogs: http://dornsife-blogs.usc.edu/pwp-brazil/
See our video from last summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGw5D9bmHo
In General:
This is an academic research course in:
1. Anthropological (an introduction to cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, anthropology and pilgrimage, rites of passage, methodology, participant observation);
2. Medical anthropology to learn about other cultures of healing; and,
3. Pilgrimage as an ancient tradition throughout time and across many religions and cultures.
Introduction:
Maymester is Dornsife College curriculum that encourages a student-driven learning experience immersed in an international setting under the supervision of a USC faculty member. This 4-unit course focuses on the performance of healing through classroom study and a three-week field course in northern Portugal and Spain. This class is part of the medical anthropology major’s track; students in my previous Anthropology 301 courses have also be given credit for Health and Humanities, Health and the Human Sciences, Religion, IR, History and Spanish (Lisa Kamrany ). Speak to your academic advisor about credit toward your major.
Students enrolled in Anthropology 301 will engage in experiential education concerning health, illness and alternative healing modalities. As a cultural anthropologist with a background in medical anthropology, I will guide the students in the intellectual aspects of doing ethnography. Students will discuss the literature and ethnographic films in the classroom and then have the direct experience of walking a segment of the Camino de Santiago. Through focused reflection groups, the students will develop their own independent research project on the Camino, for example pilgrims motivations, pilgrimage in the modern world, health and healing. Students will gain a background in cultural anthropology, learn critical observation skills, how to prepare and conduct interviews, learn survey techniques, and qualitative data analysis. This student-driven learning experience will examine not only the performance of healing through pilgrimage but also the performance of anthropology.
This Course:
The Camino background: The Camino de Santiago (the Way of Saint James) is a medieval pilgrimage route that traverses Western Europe to end in northwestern Spain (Galicia) at the Cathedral for St. James, Santiago de Compostela. The Apostle St. James was said to have preached the Catholic gospel in Spain, martyred in Jerusalem and, according to legend, his remains were smuggled back to Galicia sometime after 44 CE. The pilgrimage route follows ancient Roman trade roads. While the earliest record of pilgrims to Santiago stems from the 9th century, it became a popular destination in the 11th and 12th century when the Catholic Church gave plenary indulgences to pilgrims and the Spanish kings were fighting the invasion of Islamic forces. Pilgrimage to Santiago became one of the three main pilgrimage destinations along with Rome and Jerusalem. Today the Camino is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are many pilgrim paths to Santiago; we will walk a part of the Portuguese route.
Cultural Anthropology: Anthropology is the study of what it means to be human – across time and geography. What makes “common sense” to us is not necessarily common sense to another. We study the traditions of others.The purpose of anthropology is to open our eyes to the diversity of human cultures. We do not all see the world with the same eyes. This class will introduce you to the basic vocabulary of cultural anthropology through the study of one healing community. Culture is understood as not only the material artifacts of a people but also the learned expressions, ways of thinking, speaking and seeing the world particular to subgroups (of either great numbers or few). We will examine the debates in socio-cultural anthropology through the lenses of the Camino pilgrims.
All healing uses the power of the mind to engage the body to heal. People everywhere get sick and all societies have developed practices, technologies and medicines to treat illness. However, not all peoples understand sickness, healing, or even what it means to have a body in the same way. This medical anthropology class will look at pilgrimage in its historical perspective and its modern usage from the perspective of heath and healing. In the distant past pilgrims used pilgrimage for many different purposes, religious as well as political, economic, healing and adventure. The lore of the Camino is filled with stories of miraculous gifts of sight, fertility, virility and other healings. Modern pilgrims still walk to fulfill vows made to the saint or to make new requests for health, prosperity or love. Others find it a spiritual retreat from the stress of the modern world.
Anthropologists gather their data through fieldwork we call participant observation. We will have classroom meetings discussing socio-cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, pilgrimage in different cultures, and the anthropological/historical perspective on pilgrimage. After our time in the classroom we will spend about three weeks in Portugal and Spain. Our time on the Camino is our time to feel what it is like to be a pilgrim, staying in bunks in pilgrim hostels, eating pilgrim meals in shared kitchens, and receiving the pilgrim blessings at the Catholic churches along the way. We will stay in a variety of lodgings to meet a variety of different people: priests, albergue volunteers (the hospitaleros), residents of villages who run bars and restaurants… These are all opportunities to reflect on what it means to be a pilgrim in the 21st century.
Our participation will be supplemented by collecting healing stories from everyone we meet along the way. Everyone has a story to tell. Some topics we will explore: What does it mean to be a pilgrim today? Who are pilgrims (ages, genders, ethnicity, class)? Are they different from the medieval pilgrims we study? How are they the same? Do you have to be religious? Why are you walking? Do you believe in the power of relics or the power of the Pope to grant indulgences? Have you seen miracles or healings? What is healed and how is it healed? What is a miracle today? What are the negative aspects of the revival of the Camino since the 1980s? What is the field of anthropology and how do cultural anthropologists do their research? What are the problems with participant observation as a methodology for research? What is the pilgrim’s worldview and how was it incorporated into the Catholic culture of Spain? What is the pilgrim’s concept of the body/the spirit/the afterlife? How do these concepts affect ideas about healing? How do you judge effective treatment in your culture or in their cultures? How do pilgrimage and biomedicine interact?
Book to buy:
1. Webb, Diana, 2008, Medieval European Pilgrimage c. 700-c. 1500, Palgrave.
2. Optional (maps). A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago. By John Brierley
ARTICLES WILL COME FROM THESE BOOKS: I will post on BLACKBOARD
Lenkeit, Roberta Edwards, 2012, Introducing Cultural Anthropology, 5th Edition, McGraw Hill.
Badone, Ellen and Sharon R. Roseman, eds., 2004, Intersecting Journeys, The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, U. of Illinois Press.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 1475, Canterbury Tales (The Wife of Bath’s Tale)
Melczer, William, 1993, The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela, Italica Press, Inc. (The Medieval Codex, Book Five)
Mitchell-Lanham, Jean, 2015, The Lore of the Camino de Santiago, Two Harbors Press.
Morinis, Alan, ed. 1992, Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Contributions to the Study of Anthropology), Praeger.
Sanchez y Sanchez, Samuel and Annie Hesp, eds. 2015, The Camino de Santiago in the 21st Century, Routledge.
Reference book: just for interest, not required, Gitlitz and Davidson, 2000, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, The Complete Cultural Handbook.
There are also articles available on Ares Electronic Reserve.
Classes and Fieldwork:
1. Keep a field notebook of class notes and expectations to review for your blogs and final paper. I grade these generously, looking mostly for completion and usable, quotable, solid field notes (names, age, gender, times, conversations, quotes, etc.). This is not a personal diary. You may keep this on-line and send it to me when requested. (10% of final grade, I will look periodically).
As you read, you will have questions. Write your questions in your field notebook. Bring your questions to me, your classmates, pilgrims and people you meet along the way.
Write down every interaction and/or conversation you have before and after the Camino that sheds light on health, healing and pilgrimage: note the language and Camino signs, other sights you notice, and your own thoughts.
2. Written Reflections : (10%) All students must write approx. 400 word response on the readings assigned for EACH class at USC. Descriptive, Comparative or Critical. Write your own thoughts, experiences and connections with other readings. Write on ALL the readings assigned for the day and cite page numbers.
This may not be turned in LATE. NOTE: pls. PASTE it into the email. Write 301 in the subject line.
Send by midnight the day before the class for which it is due. Please mail earlier if you can.
Classes
Lecture 1: JANUARY 19, 2018 Quiz at the start of each class.
1. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology and Medieval Pilgrimage:
Reflection due for today is sent by midnight the night before the class:
Read: No. 1 and 2 I have will send to you.
1. Nanda and Warms, “The Idea of Culture” pg. 74 (Defining Culture) -91. Get a general idea of what anthropology is, you don’t have to read the boxed comments.
2. Nanda and Warms, “Doing Cultural Anthropology,” (I have posted the whole chapter just for fun, but the assigned reading is: bottom of 52-61, read this second after above.
3. Diana Webb, pg. 1-16, 20-39 Introduction to pilgrimages and medieval pilgrimages from an historical perspective, don’t worry about the details, just read to get the feel of these mass movements.
Note that Santiago, Compostela, Galicia or Saint James all refer to the Cathedral at the end of the Camino de Santiago; Castile refers to one Spanish Medieval Kingdom nearby (thus Castellano Spanish).
In class: “6 Ways to Santiago”
Lecture 2: January 26
Introduction to Medical Anthropology: QUIZ start of class, response due for all classes.
Medical Anthropology as a Field, Developing Community in a California healing center.
a. Relaxation Revolution, pg. 3-34, 54- 66 (46 pages)
Just for fun: Mass. General Program: http://www.massgeneral.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?id=1329
b. Bill Moyers, Healing and the Mind, A California Retreat Center, Michael Lerner: “Healing” “Wounded Healers” and “Wholeness” pages 323-363, Healing vs. Curing.
http://www.commonweal.org/programs/cancer-help.html (40 pages)
Maybe Guest speaker: Annie O’Niel, 2nd half of class
Producer:Phil's Camino www.philscamino.com, (Phil has cancer and creates his own Camino in his backyard until….)
Co-producer/Pilgrim: Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago www.caminodocumentary.org
Author: Everyday Camino with Annie www.everydaycaminowithannie.com, spiritual reflections for home or on the trail.
Lecture 3, February 9. Medical Anthropology cont. The Theatre of Performance
1. Claude, Levi-Strauss, Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology, “The Sorcerer and His Magic” pgs. 129-137 (Intro to the importance of performance in the work of a Shaman.)
2. “Doctor’s White Coat” pg. 115-121.
3. Relaxation Revolution, pg. 71-88 (Placebo/Expectation)
HOW DOES THIS HEALING WORK: Community, Touch, Healthy Living, Relaxation and good food, Placebo, Theatre.
HIKE EATON CANYON FEBRUARY 24, 8-12:30, carpool
Lecture 4,
March 2. Fieldwork, Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Quiz.
1. Anthropology and Pilgrimage:
Victor Turner and Edith Turner, “Chapter 1, Introduction: Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomon” pg. 1-39. In Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, (1978).
(this is from the grandfather of pilgrimage studies in anthropology and introduces you to the vocabulary: structure, anti-structure, rite of passage, liminality and communitas. This sets the stage for all future studies in pilgrimage in anthropology, 19 pages.)
2. Sacred Journeys, The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Introduction, the Territory of The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Alan Morinis 1992 (This piece defines pilgrimage, sets the typology for different kinds of pilgrimages) Rd. 1-21 only.
The author presents good ideas for our pilgrimage research.
3. Badone and Roseman : pgs. 24-51 (27 pages) “They told what happened on the road:" narrative and the construction of experiential knowledge on the pilgrimage to Chimayo, New Mexico.
Where does she find Turner’s rite of passage phases? Or Morinis’ motivational typology, what is this?
4. Discuss fieldtrip and carpools.
FIELDTRIP: Sunday March 4, Practice Fieldwork Ethnography and writing Anthropology
1. Spiritualist Church, visit a healing service (1.5-2 hrs. hours, Sundays 2 pm)
Bring paper and pen.
Spiritualist healer in Los Angeles (BACKGROUND)
http://www.spiritualistcenter.org/history.html (Visit the cite and see the interview with Lee Jones before you come, 26 minutes).
A brief introduction to Spiritualism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritualism
Spiritualist Center 323 856-8646, 6417 Lexington Ave., Los Angeles 90038, 101 N. to Santa Monica Blvd, left, to Cahuenga rt to Lexington, left on Lexington.
Healing service begins at 2 p.m. to about 3:30, then personal healings. Come early to chat and to sign up for a healing or reading. It takes about 50 min. in traffic from USC. Parking on street can be challenging.
Dress in church clothes, nicer pants are fine.
First fieldwork: Linger a bit before and after and find out who goes there and why. What do they believe in? TALK to people. Sit in the back so you can see what is all going on. Or sit in the front so you feel like you are part of the service. Peek sometimes when your eyes are closed. Do the members go to other churches too? Do they believe in reincarnation; biomedicine? Bring $10. for a spirit healing (if you have a friend, you can split the cost, one student be the patient and one be the observer).