CSPH5111: Ways of Thinking about Health

This course is your opportunity to examine, challenge and critically reflect upon your thinking about health. The class meets in a hybrid model that includes in-person, field-trip “micro-immersion experience” to explore different understandings of health through visits to cultural communities. We include with field trips virtual experiential glimpses into fundamentally different systems of knowledge often conflicting with the scientific/professional models emphasized in many professional fields on campus. Frameworks for critical thinking, critical self-reflection, cultural self-study, intellectual virtues and supplemental readings are offered to support your effort to step into culturally different knowledge systems and mental models of health and well-being. These frames and approaches offer you a mirror through which your own perspective, thinking and background assumptions of health become more visible and explicit. I ask you to challenge your own thinking and better recognize the culture you carry in your thinking as you attempt to inhabit different cognitive worlds. You will also apply this examination to the professional fields of your interest, sharing your insights with learners in other professions. In this way, we bring together interdisciplinary and intercultural learning. On the dates that we meet virtually, our goal is to create a space that encourages us to share with sincerity our thoughts and emerging insights with one another in Zoom conversations. The synchronous Zoom sessions allow you to benefit from each other’s personal and professional take on the immersion experiences as you develop your philosophy, narrative and understanding of health. prereq: jr, sr, grad, or instr consent

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