Hilary Smith, University of Pennsylvania Sample syllabus This is the syllabus from the writing seminar I taught at Penn during the Fall and Spring semesters, 2006-2007. Most of the students (sixteen in each class) were freshmen and sophomores, and the main purpose of the class was to improve their writing, both the writing process and the final product. It also introduced them to the ideas and practices of classical Chinese medicine. STSC 009 302: Chinese Medicine Transformed Spring 2007 Location: MONDAYS: DRLB 3W2 WEDNESDAYS: WILL 317 Day and time: M/W, 3:30-5pm smithhil@sas.upenn.edu Instructor information: Hilary Smith, Hist and Soc of Science Office phone: 215-898-4643 Office: Logan Hall 373 Office hours: M 2:30-3:30 pm; F 12-1 pm. 歡迎! Few things are more individual than the way we understand our own bodies, and what we believe about staying healthy and getting sick. Yet such ideas are not just individual—the culture in which we are immersed conditions them, and the social and economic system we inhabit mediates our contact with different forms of healing. In this seminar, we will work to understand classical Chinese medicine and its place in modern Chinese society. We will read and write about basic medical concepts and practices, and about how modernizers have changed, and are changing, traditional medicine. As a writing seminar, this course’s main objective is to help you improve as a writer and editor, learning to cast a keen (but kind) critical eye on others’ writing and on your own. Writing and editing well, like any skill, require consistent practice, which this course will elicit from you. This course is intended to help you manage, learn from, and even enjoy the writing you will do in your college career and afterwards. READINGS Please purchase the following three books, all available at the Penn Book Center, 34th and Sansom: • • • The Practice of Writing, revised 2nd edition, edited by Valerie Ross (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2006). A Writer’s Resource, edited by Elaine P. Maimon, Janice H. Peritz, and Kathleen Blake Yancey (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997). 1 Other readings will be available in the “Course Documents” folder on the course’s Blackboard site: https://courseweb.library.upenn.edu WRITING Expect to write frequently for this class. The following are the writing assignments I expect all students to complete: • • • • • In-class reading reflections. Five “Bruffee papers,” each three paragraphs plus a descriptive outline, and one revision of each paper. One tour of the cosmic body, two pages, plus revision. One editorial of about 600 words, plus two revisions. One brief reflection on a visit to the Writing Center. Your final assignment will be to select and revise some of the above assignments and submit them in a writing portfolio at the semester’s end. POLICIES Attendance: Students may miss no more than two classes over the course of the semester without an acceptable, documented excuse. Since the success of this class relies on participation and collaborative learning, it is essential that you make up—within one week—any peer reviews or in-class exercises that you have missed. Deadlines: An on-time paper is one that you submit to Blackboard before class time AND bring to class in hard copy on the day it is due. Please bring TWO copies of each paper to class with you. A descriptive outline must accompany each Bruffee paper. Publicity: This class constitutes a community of writers, and the writing that this community produces will inform and guide our discussions, so you will be sharing much of what you write (including essays, descriptive outlines, and in-class exercises) with your classmates. Academic integrity: Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are unacceptable in this course as in all others. If you have questions about this, please ask me or consult Penn’s Code of Academic Integrity, http://www.upenn.edu/osl/acadint.html. Cell phones: Please remember to leave your cell phone at home or turn it off before coming to class. Phone calls and text messages have no place in this classroom. GRADING The student who meets the following conditions can expect at least a B in this class: • Establishes his or her competency as a writer • Arrives to class on time and misses no more than two classes • Turns in all assignments on time, including revisions of papers • Participates in group work and class discussion. 2 At some point during the semester, the class will collaboratively decide on the criteria for an A. Be aware that to fulfill the university’s writing requirement, you must earn at least a C- for the semester. No incompletes will be given in this course. January 8 (M) Introduction to the course and to each other. UNIT ONE: Medical pluralism in the modern age January 10 (W) Orientation and disorientation: medicine across cultures Reading: Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, pp.1-118. In class: Intro to Bruffee method; writing diagnostic. January 15 (M): NO CLASS. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. January 17 (W) WILL 317 First peer review Due: Draft and descriptive outline of Paper #1, Two Reasons Reading: Ross, pp. 41-59 (Writing position papers, two reasons model); pp.85-96 (Propositions) In class: WORKSHOP, PEER REVIEW January 22 (M) DRLB 3W2 Due: Revision of Paper #1. Reading: Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, pp.119-249, Ross, pp.24-39 In class: Reading reflection. January 24 (W) WILL 317 Reading: Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, pp.250-end. UNIT TWO: Basic concepts in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) January 29 (M) DRLB 3W2 Reading: Ross, pp. 59-65 (Nestorian order model), Sivin, “Theoretical concepts: yin and yang, five phases,” pp.59-80 in Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China. Due: Draft and descriptive outline of Paper #2, Nestorian Order In class: WORKSHOP, PEER REVIEW January 31 (W) WILL 317 Understanding the TCM body Due: Revision of Paper #2, Nestorian order. Reading: Kaptchuk, pp.41-67 in The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine (McGraw-Hill 2000 edition). 3 Sivin, notes on reading efficiently. In class: Reading reflection February 5 (M) DRLB 3W2 Reading: Ross, pp.65-69 (Straw Man model) Due: Draft and descriptive outline of Paper #3, Straw man In class: WORKSHOP, PEER REVIEW February 7 (W) WILL 317 The body and the cosmos Due: Revision of Paper #3, Straw Man Reading: Schipper, “The inner landscape,” pp. 100-112 in The Taoist Body; Livia Kohn, “The cosmic body,” pp. 161-188 in The Taoist Experience. In class: Reading reflection February 12 (M) DRLB 3W2 Due: Draft of Paper #4, The cosmic body tour Reading: Ross, pp. 247-267 (Action) In class: WORKSHOP, PEER REVIEW February 14 (W) WILL 317 Due: Revision of Paper # 4, The cosmic body tour In class: Watch “The Health Culture: Traditional Chinese Medicine in the 21st Century,” part of the China: Dragon’s Ascent series, 2001. UNIT THREE: Practices February 18: Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the Dog ends; Year of the Pig begins. February 19 (M) DRLB 3W2 The clinical encounter Due: Draft of Paper #5, The clinical encounter, and ONE sentence in bureaucratese, posted to the course blog by class time. Reading: Judith Farquhar, “The clinical encounter observed,” pp. 41-59 in Knowing Practice. In class: WORKSHOP, PEER REVIEW February 21 (W) WILL 317 Pharmacology: materia medica and formulas Reading: Unschuld, “The Chinese pharmacy,” pp.42-54 in Medicine in China: Historical Artifacts and Images. “Medicines from The Divine Husbandman’s Canon of Materia Medica,” pp. 239-241 in Mair, Steinhardt, and Goldin, eds. Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture. Sivin translation of money as materia medica. In class: Reading reflection February 26 (M) DRLB 3W2 4 Due: Revision of Paper #5, The clinical encounter Reading: Ross, pp.269-289 (Voice) In class: WORKSHOP on improving voice. February 28 (W) WILL 317 Acupuncture and moxibustion Reading: Hsu, “Innovations in acumoxa: acupuncture analgesia, scalp and ear acupuncture in the people’s Republic of China,” Social Science and Medicine vol. 42, 421-430; Brown, “Use of acupuncture in major surgery,” Lancet (June 17, 1972): 132830; Greene, “This is no humbug—or is it?” Anesthesiology v.36 no.2 (February 1972): 101-102. In class: Reading reflection. March 5 and 7: NO CLASS. Spring break. March 12 (M) DRLB 3W2 Reading: Ross, pp. 73-80 (Concession model) and pp.81-85 (“Introductions”) Due: Draft and descriptive outline of Paper #6, Concession In class: Video, “To Taste a Hundred Herbs: Gods, ancestors and medicine in a Chinese village,” directed by Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon, Long Bow Films, 1986. March 14 (W) WILL 317 Emotional healing Reading: Sivin, “Emotional counter-therapy,” pp.1-19 in Section II of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. In class: PEER REVIEW March 19 (M) DRLB 3W2 Due: Revision of Paper #6, Concession Reading: Livia Kohn, “Physical practices,” pp.133-159 in The Taoist Experience. Nancy Chen, “Fever,” pp. 35-60 in Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China. In class: WORKSHOP March 21 (W) Demonstration by Korben Perry, L.Ac., founder, Philadelphia Community Acupuncture. Korben will demonstrate how he diagnoses patients and treats them with acupuncture. He will also answer any questions students may have about learning and practicing acupuncture in the US today. Location: DRLB 2C2 March 26 (M) DRLB 3W2 Due: Draft and descriptive outline of Paper #7, editorial Reading: Ross, pp. 189-211 (Reaching out to members of other communities) In class: WORKSHOP, Qigong/physical practices discussion 5 March 28 (W) WILL 317 The Republican era Reading: Lao She, “A Brilliant Beginning,” pp.85-93 in Modern Chinese Stories In class: PEER REVIEW UNIT FOUR: Modernizing institutions and ideology April 2 (M) DRLB 3W2 The Communist era Due: Revision of Paper #7, editorial. Reading: A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual (1977 Running Press edition), pp.35-49, 69-71. Jung Chang, short excerpt from Wild Swans on Chang’s experience as a barefoot doctor. In class: WORKSHOP, discussion of the politics of med in Communist China April 4 (W) WILL 317 Reading: Elisabeth Hsu, pp.128-132 and 145-156 in The Transmission of Chinese Medicine (selections from “The standardised transmission of knowledge.”) Sivin, pp.405407, 410-414, 419-420, 425-427 in Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China. In class: GROUP REVIEW of revised essays April 9 (M) DRLB 3W2 Due: Second revision of Paper #7, editorial Writing conferences April 11 (W) WILL 317 Writing conferences April 16 (M) HARNWELL COLLEGE HOUSE computer lab Due: Grammar memo for final assignment. TCM in America Reading: Martha L. Hare, “The emergence of an urban U.S. Chinese medicine,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 7(1):30-49. April 18 (W) WILL 317 Reading: Browse each other’s editorials, posted on the course blog. See one small portion of the group’s hard work. Last class meeting. We will discuss how the assignments and in-class exercises you’ve completed for this class can help you with your writing in the future. If we have time, you will also have the opportunity to get a little more feedback from your classmates and from me about the essays you plan to include in your final portfolio. April 23 (M) DUE: Writing portfolio. Place in my mailbox in the HSSC department office, 303 Logan Hall. 6