Health, Illness, and Power in America
AMST 353Z
Summer 2023
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
SISP 353Z |
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; 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.
In its iteration as a Summer Session course, class instruction will be provided as a combination of interactive lecture, discussion, and small group work. On a daily basis, students will be asked to complete and discuss reading assignments, short research activities, and written responses. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(STS) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 - Summer Session I |
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:
Students will be responsible for: (1) presentations on the reading; (2) Moodle posts responding to the reading; (3) active and engaged class participation; (4) small group write-ups; (5) "show and tell" assignments which require students to bring in outside material related to the assigned reading; (6) a final paper on a topic of their choice related to class themes and ideas. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Full syllabi will be linked as they become available |
| Instructor(s): Glick,Megan H. Times: .MTWR.. 01:10PM-03:15PM; Location: ONLINE; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 11 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 3 | 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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