Teaching
As a broadly trained anthropologist with a focus on human health in Asia, Priscilla Song draws on her research to engage students in some of the most important questions of our era: How do social inequalities shape human suffering and affect health outcomes around the world? How are the politics of cultural difference linked to the production of scientific knowledge in non-Western contexts? How are biomedical technologies changing what it means to be human? She addresses these questions in a wide range of courses in medical anthropology, health humanities, science and technology studies, and East Asian studies. Areas of strength include biosocial and cross-cultural perspectives on illness and health, critical studies of biotechnology and technoscience, impacts of social change on human health (including urbanization, modernization, and globalization), and methodology (including research design, qualitative research methods, ethnographic writing, and digital media).
Priscilla Song has a strong track record of sustaining and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the institutions where she has taught, including Harvard University, Yale University, the New School for Social Research, Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and Penn State College of Medicine. She has developed over a dozen new undergraduate and (post)graduate courses, consistently earned top ratings in student course evaluation scores, pioneered innovative teaching and supervision methods, contributed to curriculum development by promoting interdisciplinarity and internationalization, successfully supervised postgraduate (PhD, MPhil, and MA) students to completion and employment, and won multiple teaching excellence awards.
Courses taught at Penn State College of Medicine:
Foundations of Health Humanities [required introductory course for first year medical students]
Observation and Interpretation [required course for first year medical students]
Humanities in Context [required course for first year medical students]
Race and Social (In)Justice [selective for final year medical students]
Courses taught at the University of Hong Kong:
Body Politics: Local Worlds, Global Processes [HKU Common Core Curriculum]
Health, Medicine and Society in Late Imperial and Modern China [HKU Department of History]
Revolutionizing Health in Modern China [HKU Department of History]
Oral History and Ethnographic Research Methods [HKU Department of History]
Research Methods in the Humanistic Study of Science, Technology, Medicine, and Health [HKU Centre for the Humanities and Medicine]
Courses taught at Washington University in St. Louis:
Culture, Illness and Healing in Asia [WUSTL Department of Anthropology]
Cultures of Science and Technology [WUSTL Department of Anthropology]
Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society [WUSTL East Asian Studies Program]
Material Culture in Modern China [WUSTL East Asian Studies Program]
Popular Culture and Consumption in China [WUSTL East Asian Studies Program]
Family Change in East Asia [WUSTL East Asian Studies Program]
Medical Anthropology Selective [WUSTL School of Medicine]
Courses taught at other universities:
Anthropology of Technoscience [New School for Social Research]
Introduction to Medical Anthropology [Yale Department of Anthropology]
Anthropology of Science and Technology [Yale Department of Anthropology]
Material Culture in Modern China [Yale Department of Anthropology]
Topics in Chinese Anthropology [Yale Department of Anthropology]
The Anthropology of Science Fiction [Harvard University Department of Anthropology]
Culture, Illness, and Healing: Social Analysis Course [Harvard University Core Curriculum]
