ANSO 371 Psychological Anthropology

Anthropologists argue that rather than seeing the mind of “the other” as an imperfect or incomplete version of our own, we must approach it as an “alternative form.” In this course we will be investigating questions such as: Do members of non-Western cultures “sense and think” like members of Western cultures? Do individuals from a non-literate culture actually reason differently from members of a literate culture? Is one culture’s schizophrenic another culture’s saint? Are some psychological disorders specific to certain cultures? Why is it that close to 90% of the world’s cultures sanction some form of an altered state of consciousness? This course is recommended for students of both anthropology and psychology.