College Bulletin 2024-2025 
    
    Feb 08, 2025  
College Bulletin 2024-2025

ARAB 005. First Year Seminar: Medicine, Magic, and Madness in the Middle East


Illness and suffering, both physical and psychological, are universal human experiences that transcend time and cultural boundaries. The recent global COVID-19 pandemic has underscored our collective vulnerability and emphasized the importance of healthcare. This course explores how such experiences have manifested across different epochs in the region known today as the Middle East-from ancient Babylonia, through medieval Islamic societies, to contemporary times. It provides a comprehensive exploration of the medical traditions that have evolved, merged, conflicted, or supplanted each other in this area. Throughout the course, we will examine the theories, diagnoses, and treatments of mental and physical illnesses over various periods. We will explore ancient pharmaceutical recipes and rituals designed to banish spirits and cure ailments; medieval empirical texts that linked physical symptoms with mental and emotional states; and contemporary practices of jinn appeasement and exorcism. We will also consider the impact of imperial and colonial policies on Middle Eastern societies’ approaches to mental health. By examining these themes, the course aims to reveal the relevance of Middle Eastern medical traditions to our contemporary lives and healthcare frameworks.
Humanities.
Writing course.
1 credit.
Spring 2025. Gasimov.
Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: Arabic ​ 
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/arabic#


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