FGSS 4114 - Science, Medicine, the Body: A Critical Race and Feminist Inquiry

(crosslisted) ANTHR 4114, BSOC 4741, STS 4741
(HA-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Co-meets with ANTHR 7114/BSOC 7741/FGSS 7114/STS 7741.

L. Ramberg.

In this course we will consider the production of the human body as an artifact of race, sex and gender through the discourses, practices, and technologies of bio-science and bio-medicine. We will read critical race, feminist, and postcolonial critiques of science and medicine as forms of knowledge complicit with imperial, racist and patriarchal political projects as well as conduits for humanitarianism and emancipation. We will examine case studies in the histories of science and medicine such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, commercial surrogacy, plastic surgery, the global trade in organs, and the HeLa cell line. We will also think together about collaborations between patients and doctors, citizens and scientists, that have produced new ways of inhabiting the body, new forms of human relations, and new kinds of justice.