Maryna Nading

ANTH 101 – Cultural Anthropology
A study in what it means to be human, this course uses the concept of culture to account for the tremendous variety of practices and beliefs throughout the world. Students will also examine patterns in human behavior, addressing cultural similarities as well as cultural differences. Course content provides insight into how cultural anthropologists do what they do – what methods they use to study culture and what ethical issues they may encounter while doing so. Students will be expected to engage some of these anthropological methods by completing a series of ethnographic exercises. Through the study of anthropological works and practice with ethnographic methods, the course will prepare students to apply the anthropological approach as they navigate an increasingly diverse and globalized world.

ANTH 208 – Medical Anthropology
Medical Anthropology explores health, illness, disease and medicine across the globe. Using anthropological principles, we explore how medical knowledge and practices are culturally and socially constructed. Key topics of the course include: interactions between various ethnomedical systems, including biomedicine; healers and healing professions; ideologies of the body; beginnings and ends of life; the role of new biomedical technologies and the pharmaceutical industry; political and moral economies of health in the global context. Our course will focus on some key texts in medical anthropology as well as new ethnographies that address intercultural encounters in medical settings.

ANTH 210 – Qualitative Research Methods in Anthropology
This course will introduce students to qualitative research methods in anthropology. The goal is to provide training and hands-on experience in designing a research project, carrying out ethnographic fieldwork, and analyzing the data. Students will get an opportunity to work on projects of their choice and select appropriate methodologies, including participant observation, different types of interviewing, and other systematic observation techniques. Students will learn how to construct interview schedules, administer sorting and ranking surveys, use time recall questionnaires, ethnographic taxonomies, life histories, genealogies, and focus groups. The writing component will include field notes, reports, and personal journals. Students will engage in multiple re-writes of their final reports, aided by peer review. In this process, we will pay special attention to ethics involving research with human subjects. Offered alternate years.

ANTH 306 – Sugar, Strawberries and Pills: Anthropology of Commodity Chains
Our class will embark on an exploration of social histories of commodity chains, such as sugar, oil, diamonds, coffee, strawberries, pharmaceuticals, and others. We will explore the ways in which commodity flows connect people, places, images, ideologies, and capital around the globe in multidirectional, hierarchical, and uneven exchange. We will contextualize the large-scale political, economic, and cultural processes in the everyday realities of particular societies and everyday experiences of regular people. In other words, this course will study globalization from below. We will address questions such as: how do men and women around the world engage with various commodities? How is globalization implicated in people’s wellbeing, occupations, family lives, intimacies, futures? Our class will challenge you to think about the interactions between the issues of social justice, human rights, and the anthropological dedication to cultural rights. Ultimately, we will consider what the commodity chains mean to stability and prosperity of various communities around the world, as well as challenge us to see where we are positioned in the flow of certain commodities.

ANTH 331 – Gender, Health, and Medicine
This class will invite students to examine gender and health issues around the globe, focusing primarily on reproductive health. The class uses a multidisciplinary perspective, which involves insights from anthropology, global health, sociology, women and gender studies, and related disciplines. The course will focus on different themes, responding to current developments in the world. Our goal is to understand how bodies and health are connected to the overarching social and environmental issues, as well as to see how people have made sense of their bodies, identities, and health experiences. Offered alternate years.

GH 101 – Introduction to Global Health
This course will introduce students to the multidisciplinary field of global health, which is based primarily on public health as well as a variety of other disciplines. The course will introduce students to the milestones in global health, main methods and units of analysis, as well as the ways in which population health is shaped by environmental and social factors. Students will explore the current trends in disease distribution globally and critically examine reasons for health disparities. Students will also explore notable case studies in order to learn about the scope of possible interventions, get to know the main stakeholders in the field of global health, and understand the urgent global health priorities.

GH 401 – Senior Seminar in Global Health
This course will build on the core global health courses to grapple with theoretical and practical approaches in global health. Students will explore theories from relevant disciplines to help them integrate their understanding of public health approaches, ethical perspectives, health care governance models, and insights from immersion experiences. Students will draw on their coursework to develop research projects pertinent to the region and health concerns of their academic interest, with strong preference that they focus on the country of their immersion experience. They will also explore a number of professional development exercises and will have an opportunity to learn about different career pathways in the global health field.

• Ph.D., Anthropology, State University of New York at Albany, August 2010
  Dissertation: “The Female Face of Post-Socialist Biomedicine: Ukrainian Women Physicians at Post-Socialist Crossroads. Changing Ideas of Professionalism and Morality.”
• M.A., Anthropology, State University of New York at Albany, May 2004
  Thesis title: ”Women Professionals in Economic Transition in Ukraine and Russia.”
• B.A., English Philology and Translation, Technological University of Podillia, Khmelnytsky, Ukraine, June 2001

Maryna Nading is an anthropologist whose research focuses on the health workforce and gender. She has written on issues of gender segregation by medical specialty, professionalization, remuneration, and class in Ukraine. Her work appeared in Medical Anthropology Theory, Human Organization; Medical Anthropology Quarterly; and Anthropology of Work. Nading’s current research investigates sites of care that extend beyond clinical settings. She is working with a Ukrainian volunteer group “Maskuty” that creates camouflage nets for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Nading argues that such war relief efforts can be understood as a type of reproductive labor that fosters radical hope in the face of adversity.

2022. “Solidarity Against Fear.” Hot Spots, Fieldsights. “Russia’s War in Ukraine, Continued.” Ries, Nancy, and Catherine Wanner Eds. March 28, 2022. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/russias-war-in-ukraine-continued

2022. “‘Beautiful’ Medicine: Gender Segregation by Medical Specialty in Ukraine.” Medical Anthropology Theory 9(1):1-29.  https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.9.1.5429

2022. A translated Op-Ed in Des Moines Register. March 17, 2022. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2022/03/17/displaced-ukraine-families-stories-reassurance/7048014001/

2021. “’Medicine Is Not Business, Health Is Not a Commodity, Physicians Are Not Salesmen!’ Clinical Labor and Ukraine’s Health Reform.” Anthropology of Work Review 42(2): 93-107. https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12224

2020. A Critical Time to Focus on Global Health. Ideas and Creations Blog. Luther College. June 25, 2020. https://www.luther.edu/ideas-creations-blog/?story_id=913730

2017. Bazylevych Maryna, Anderson Brittany. “’I would like to have a surprise… something unplanned.’ Imaginaries of Hope among Young People in Ukraine.” Lithuanian Ethnology: Studies in Social Anthropology and Ethnology. 17(26): 153–172.

2015. ”Ukrainian Physicians Reinterpret the Hippocratic Oath: Significance of Remuneration and Class in Bioethics.” Human Organization 74(3): 197-206. https://doi.org/10.17730/0018-7259-74.3.197

2014. Cold War(s) Then and Now. Reflections from the Undergraduate Classroom. Anthropology News. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2014/08/27/cold-wars-then-and-now/

2011.“Vaccination Campaigns in Post-Socialist Ukraine. When Body Politic and Citizens’ Bodies Intersect” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 25(4):436-456. (Awarded Society for Medical Anthropology’s Steven Polgar paper prize).