Metabolism and Technoscience
SISP 215
Fall 2017 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
SOC 220 |
| Course Cluster: Health Studies |
This course will investigate the scientific idea of metabolism through the lens of technoscience. Metabolism is a flexible and mobile scientific idea, one that has been applied at the micro-level of analysis within biological organisms, at the meso-level of social collectivities, and at the macro-level of global ecologies. Metabolism encompasses all of the biological and technosocial processes through which bodies (both human and not human) and societies (again, human and not) create and use nutrients, medicines, toxins, and fuels. The lens of technoscience enables us to investigate the technological and scientific practices that define and drive metabolic processes within sciences, cultures, and political economies. These processes implicate forces of production, consumption, labor, absorption, medicalization, appropriation, expansion, growth, surveillance, regulation, and enumeration. Accordingly, as we will learn, metabolism is also a profoundly political process that is inextricably linked to systems that create structural and symbolic violence as well as modes of resistance and struggle. In these contexts, we will interpret some of the most pressing metabolic crises facing human societies, including ecological disaster, industrial food regimes, metabolic health problems, and industrial-scale pollution. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS SISP |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENVS-MN)(ENVS) |
Major Readings:
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York. THE ECOLOGICAL RIFT: CAPITALISM'S WAR ON THE EARTH
Rachel Carson. 2012. SILENT SPRING
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Examinations and Assignments:
Class participation, reflection essays, quizzes, and a final research paper |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
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