RS 288Health, Medicine, and Spirituality

This course examines how spirituality and religion have informed approaches to health and medicine from the 19th century to the present, including understandings of disease, illness, health, sexuality, and the body. Topics may include spiritual and/or religious concepts of health and sickness; meditation, prayer, and healing; "alternative" medicine; Indigenous approaches to health and medicine; mental health and spiritual practice; and religion and health care justice. Students are introduced to a variety of research methods that will help them identify, understand, and critically assess the complex boundaries that exist between modern medicine and spirituality.