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CS92PROD
Health, Illness, and Power in America
AMST 353Z
Summer 2023
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: SISP 353Z

In this class, we will explore the interlocking histories of health, illness, and power in America. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which discourses of the healthy body have undergirded notions of citizenship and belonging in the nation. We will consider how processes of disease, disability, and contagion have been imagined through the lenses of social difference, including race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will address civil institutions designed to manage individual and population health, and we will consider theories of political power in the making of the "modern" body. Sample topics covered will include immigration policies and contagious disease scares; STDs and the politics of public health campaigns; physical fitness and the value of bodily labor under capitalism; the management of diseases that are symptomatic and those that are not; race- and gender-based approaches to medicine and medical difference; clinical trials and the ethics of human experimentation; regulations surrounding blood and organ donation; changing rituals of bodily hygiene; preventative medicine and the call to personal responsibility; mental health policies and institutions; and pride movements surrounding the "unhealthy" body.

In its iteration as a Summer Session course, class instruction will be provided as a combination of interactive lecture, discussion, and small group work. On a daily basis, students will be asked to complete and discuss reading assignments, short research activities, and written responses.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AMST
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (AMST)(STS)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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