Special Topics in Environmental Policy and Culture (390-0-25)

Topic

US Health: Illness & Inequality

Instructors

Shana Bernstein
847/467-6850
620 Lincoln #205

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 109: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

US Health: Illness & Inequality

In this course students will examine themes in the history of health in the U.S., particularly in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Readings will focus on the intersections between health and environment, gender, race, law, and religion. We will consider questions such as what's the impact of environmental change in transforming medical, scientific, and lay understanding and experience of health and illness? What's the role of illness in shaping changing perceptions of the environment? How has race been central to the construction and treatment of disease? how has gender shaped conceptions of and approaches to health? What historical role have issues of gender, race and class played in the inequitable distribution of pollution and in activist involvement in combating environmental hazards? How has changing food production and culture shaped health? This course assumes no previous coursework in the field, and students with a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines are encouraged to participate.

Learning Objectives

Course objectives include 1) to understand U.S. history (and contemporary society) through the lens of health and 2) to foster analytical, reading, discussion, and writing skills that will help students think and communicate critically about historical and contemporary society and politics.

Evaluation Method

two short papers, one longer one, one presentation and discussion

Class Materials (Required)

Class materials: a combination of articles/book chapters on canvas and a few books: • Laurie B. Green, John McKiernan -Gonzalez, and Martin Summers, eds., Precarious Prescriptions: Contested Histories of Race and Health in North America • Nancy Langston, Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES • Susan Levine, Levine, School Lunch Politics: the Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program • Elaine Tyler May, America + the Pill • Linda Nash, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration is reserved for Environmental Policy students.