Health, Illness, and Power in America
AMST 353
Spring 2026
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
STS 353 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Disability Studies, Queer Studies |
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; individualized approaches to medicine and medical difference; clinical trials and the ethics of human experimentation; pregnancy and childbirth; 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. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (American Studies)(Human Rights Advocacy Minor)(Science and Technology Studies) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Sample reading excerpts (subject to change):
Adele Clarke et al., eds., BIOMEDICALIZATION: TECHNOSCIENCE, HEALTH, AND ILLNESS IN THE US
Warwick Anderson, COLONIAL PATHOLOGIES: AMERICAN TROPICAL MEDICINE, RACE, AND HYGIENE IN THE PHILIPPINES
Rickie Solinger, PREGNANCY AND POWER
Malinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby, CLINICAL LABOR: TISSUE DONORS AND RESEARCH SUBJECTS IN THE GLOBAL BIOECONOMY
Sander Gilman, MAKING THE BODY BEAUTIFUL: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF AESTHETIC SURGERY
Lauren Berlant, CRUEL OPTIMISM
Lesley Sharp, THE TRANSPLANT IMAGINARY: MECHANICAL HEARTS, ANIMAL PARTS, AND MORAL THINKING IN HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
Margaret Lock, ORGAN TRANSPLANTS AND THE REINVENTION OF DEATH
Harriet Washington, MEDICAL APARTHEID: THE DARK HISTORY OF MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION ON BLACK AMERICANS FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly short writing assignments, class participation, presentations, final paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
N/A |
Instructor(s): STAFF
Times: TBA; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 14 | | SR major: 6 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 14 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 1 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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