Race and Medicine in America
AMST 256
Fall 2018 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
SISP 256 |
| Course Cluster: Disability Studies, Health Studies, Queer Studies |
This course will trace ideas of race in American medical science and its cultural contexts, from the late 19th century to the present. We will explore how configurations of racial difference have changed over time and how medical knowledge about the body has both influenced and helped to shape social, political, and popular cultural forces. We will interrogate the idea of medical knowledge as a "naturalizing" discourse that produces racial classifications as essential, and biologically based.
We will treat medical sources as primary documents, imagining them as but one interpretation of the meaning of racial difference, alongside alternate sources that will include political tracts, advertisements, photographs, and newspaper articles. Key concepts explored will include slavery's medical legacy, theories of racial hierarchy and evolution, the eugenics movement, "race-specific" medications and diseases, public health politics and movements, genetics and modern "roots" projects, immigration and new technologies of identification, and intersections of race and disability. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(HRAD-MN)(IDEA-MN)(IDEA)(STS) |
Major Readings:
Excerpted texts may include:
Alondra Nelson, BODY AND SOUL: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY AND THE FIGHT AGAINST MEDICAL DISCRIMINATION
David Serlin, REPLACEABLE YOU
Sander Gilman, THE JEW'S BODY
Samuel Kelton Roberts, INFECTIOUS FEAR: POLITICS, DISEASE, AND THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF SEGREGATION
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, THE CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: RACE, CRIME, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN AMERICA
Nancy Ordover, AMERICAN EUGENICS: RACE, QUEER ANATOMY, AND THE SCIENCE OF NATIONALISM
Ronald Takaki, STRANGERS FROM A DIFFERENT SHORE
Natalia Molina, FIT TO BE CITIZENS? PUBLIC HEALTH AND RACE IN LOS ANGELES, 1879-1939
Troy Duster, BACKDOOR TO EUGENICS
Nayan Shah, CONTAGIOUS DIVIDES: RACE AND EPIDEMICS IN SAN FRANCISCO'S CHINATOWN
Laura Briggs, REPRODUCING EMPIRE: RACE, SEX, SCIENCE AND US IMPERIALISM IN PUERTO RICO
Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Loic Wacquant, COMMODIFYING BODIES
Pablo Mitchell, WEST OF SEX: MAKING MEXICAN AMERICA
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Examinations and Assignments:
In-class participation
In-class midterm
Multiple moodle posts
Final paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course may not be used to meet the pre-1900 requirement for AMST majors, as it focuses on the 20th century. |
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