IDND140

Description

Section information text: IDND 140: Race, Health, and Social Justice in United States History Students will examine the inextricable connectedness of race and racism to medicine, science and health care throughout United States history. Race and health will be studied as historical phenomena that rely on the constructions, productions and experiences of each other. Despite examining race writ large, we will focus on the African American experience within the medical and health services delivery system of the United States. Students will explore how public health, medical, and scientific authorities have conceptualized, portrayed and treated African Americans as both individual "patients" and as a "racial" group, writ large. We will also explore how political and cultural authorities have used health and medical sciences to enact racist ideas and policies. Furthermore, students will assess the ways in which individual African Americans and predominantly African-American organizations have earned for themselves quality and equitable health care services, thus constituting an important American social movement. African-American doctors, nurses, scientists and political activists play important roles in many of the histories that students will read and discuss. This course progresses chronologically and thematically. It is designed to be topical, not comprehensive.