Metabolism and Technoscience
SISP 215
Spring 2020
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENVS 222 |
| Certificates: Environmental Studies, Environmental Studies Minor |
| Course Cluster: Health Studies, Sustainability and Environmental Justice |
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) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Major readings by Michael Montoya, Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Anthony Hatch, John Foster, Karl Marx, Hannah Landecker, Janet Shim, Anne Pollock, Donna Haraway, and Sidney Mintz, Sara Shostak, and Vandana Shiva among others.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Blog postings based on the readings, short analytic essays, attendance and participation, final research paper |
| Instructor(s): Hatch,Anthony Ryan Times: ..T.R.. 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: FISK302; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 35 | | SR major: 8 | JR major: 8 | | |
| Seats Available: -7 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 5 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 10 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 4 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 1 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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