Response paper to the book, When the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Book ISBN: 978-0895175311
A minimum of three pages, double spaced, standard fonts and margins.
Prompt is as follows:
Write an essay responding to this book in the context of cultural anthropology (and focusing on illness and healing). Some issues you might want to include are:
The goals of this assignment include demonstrating your ability to understand the impact of culture and religion and related ideas and to analyze them using theory and concepts from the class. However, because this is a response paper/critique, an important aspect of the paper is your own reaction to the material (Were you surprised or shocked by it? Did it challenge your assumptions and/or beliefs? Are there ways you can relate it to an experience in your life?
v Perceptions of the body
v How diagnosis is accomplished in different cultural systems
v Differing beliefs about causation of illness/disease
v Healing practices in modern vs. traditional societies
v Patients’ rights
v Ethnocentrism
v Economic issues
v Taboos
v Folk medicine
v Shamanism
v Professional medicine/medicine for profit/medical elite
Primarily, I want to know how this book affected you, and what you thought of it … did it change any “realities” or ways of thinking.
Sample Solution
