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FYS549

Race and Gender in Biomedicine

Subject code

FYS

Course Number

549

Department(s)

Instructor(s)

J. Hamilton

Course Long Title

Race and Gender in Biomedicine

Description

This course explores conceptualizations and representations of race and gender in health and medicine. Students begin by looking at the history of race, sex, and sexuality in Western science, especially in terms of how they have been articulated through multiple contexts involving infectious diseases. How does scientific thought and practice intersect with larger political and economic movements including colonization and imperialism? Then they discuss the uses of race and sex in contemporary biomedicine focusing on the following questions: How is inequality "written on the body"? How are categories of risk and susceptibility racialized and biologized? How are racism and sexism considered "underlying conditions" that powerfully shape whether or not people contract infectious diseases and who lives and who dies? The course focuses on global health disparities.

Modes of Inquiry

Analysis and Critique [AC], Historical and Social Inquiry [HS]

Writing Credit

W1

Class Restriction

Exclude Sophomores, Exclude Juniors, Exclude Seniors, 05