Courses:

History and Anthropology of Medicine and Biology >> Content Detail



Syllabus



Syllabus

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Course Description


This course explores recent historical and anthropological approaches to the study of medicine and biology. Topics include histories of bodies and embodiment in medicine; institutional and social genealogies and futures for genes and genomes; the role of science and medicine in racial formation; epidemics and emergent diseases; new reproductive technologies and socialities; the laboratory and field lives of animals, plants, microbes, molecules, and environments.



Requirements


This is a seminar. Students are required to give at least one seminar presentation, offering a critical evaluation of positions represented in the readings for their chosen day. There are two writing assignments: a short paper (5 pages) on course readings up through week 6, and a 15-20 page paper that can be either (A) a research paper using course materials to discuss a case study of interest to you, or (B) a more extended argumentative literature review. A prospectus for this paper will be due in week 9 and the final paper will be due in week 14, in time for our class conference.



Grading



ACTIVITIESPERCENTAGES
Class Participation and Presentation30%
Short Paper20%
Final Paper50%



Required Texts


The readings are a mix of books and articles or chapters. We recommend purchasing:

Amazon logo Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York, NY: Zone Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780942299892.

Amazon logo Lock, Margaret. Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780520226050.

Amazon logo Keller, Evelyn Fox. The Century of the Gene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780674008250.

Amazon logo Jones, David S. Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674013056.

Amazon logo Wailoo, Keith. Dying in the City of Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race in America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807825846.

Amazon logo Hacking, Ian. Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780813918235.

Amazon logo Rader, Karen. Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780691016368.

Amazon logo Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780393038729.

Amazon logo Thompson, Charis. Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780262201568.

Amazon logo Pressman, Jack C. Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780521353717.

Amazon logo Schiebinger, Londa. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, UK: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674014879.



Class Schedule



WEEK #TOPICSKEY DATES
1Introduction
2The Expressiveness of the Body, Living and Dead
3Body Parts and Body Worlds
4Genealogies and Futures for Genes and Genomes
5A Century of Race
6Race and DiseaseShort paper due
7Emergent Disease
8Laboratories
9AnimalsProspectus due
10Reproductive Technology
11Therapeutics
12Plants and Bioprospecting
13Environments
14Class Conference: Paper PresentationsFinal paper due

 








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