Health, Illness, and Power in America
AMST 353
Fall 2014
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
SISP 353 |
| Course Cluster: Disability Studies, Queer Studies |
In this class, we will explore the interlocking histories of health, illness, and power in America over the course of the past 200 years. 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. |
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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: (AMST)(HRAD-MN)(STS) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Nayan Shah, CONTAGIOUS DIVIDES: EPIDEMICS AND RACE IN SAN FRANCISCO'S CHINATOWN
Emily Martin, BIPOLAR EXPEDITIONS: MANIA AND DEPRESSION IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Susan Sontag, ILLNESS AS METAPHOR
Cathy Cohen, THE BOUNDARIES OF BLACKNESS: AIDS AND THE BREAKDOWN OF BLACK POLITICS
France Widdance Twine, OUTSOURCING THE WOMB: RACE, CLASS, AND GESTATIONAL SURROGACY IN A GLOBAL MARKET
Nancy Ordover, AMERICAN EUGENICS: RACE, QUEER ANATOMY, AND THE SCIENCE OF NATIONALISM
Robert McRuer and Anna Mollow, eds., SEX AND DISABILITY
Paul Rabinow, ed., THE FOUCAULT READER
Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze, eds., BIOPOLITICS: A READER
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Examinations and Assignments:
3 Short response essays
Midterm essay
In-class presentation
Final essay |
| Instructor(s): Glick,Megan H. Times: ....R.. 01:10PM-04:00PM; Location: CAMS 1; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: -1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 2 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 9 | 1st Ranked: 2 | 2nd Ranked: 2 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 4 |
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