Global Arc

This seminar explores how reproductive technologies are involved in the government of biological and social life. Through readings in medical anthropology, critical social theory, and science and technology studies we will consider how reproductive technologies (both contraceptive and procreative) shape understandings of the body, personhood, modernity and nature, and how practices of biological reproduction are entangled with the social reproduction of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Ethnographic studies include hormonal contraception, assisted conception, abortion, sterilization, stem cell science, adoption, and prenatal screening.

Introduces disease and healthcare problems worldwide and examines efforts to address them. Via an interdisciplinary approach, identifies the main actors, institutions, knowledge, and values at play in the "global health system", and explores the environmental, social, political, and economic factors that shape patterns and variations in disease and health across societies. Topics include: development and governance of disease; technological change and public health; human rights and social justice; measuring health outcomes; and the shifting role of states, civil society, and public-private partnerships in healthcare delivery. Two lectures.

Focuses on the distribution and determinants of disease. Diverse methodological approaches for measuring health status, disease occurrence, and the association between risk factors and health outcomes will be presented via classic and contemporary studies of chronic and infectious illness and disease outbreaks. Emphasis on: causal inference, study design and sampling, bias and confounding, the generalizability of research, health policy and research ethics. Prerequisite: an approved basic statistics course. Two 90-minute lectures, one preceptorial.

This course will examine four major topics in global health. Each topic will span two or three class meetings. The first session on a topic will feature a presentation by an expert invited from outside the University. Following the expert presentation, student discussants will lead a question/answer/commentary period. During the second and third class meetings for each topic, students will explore elements of the expert's presentation in greater depth as well as additional aspects relating to the topic of discussion. The student presentations will each be followed by student discussants.

This seminar will examine the contemporary phenomenon of "global health" in Africa against the history and politics of health and healing. Topics include; colonial efforts to regulate race, gender, sexuality, and labor; African's responses to colonialism and missionization; the impact of colonialism on experience of health and healing; the training of African practitioners of biomedicine; the significance of healing practices to anti-colonial movements; and the relevance of these historical experiences to contemporary African public health and medicine. We will conclude with case studies of cutting-edge health issues in Africa.

This course will review the policies that influence new technology development and use in the health care sector. The course will explore how governments promote health innovation and regulate safety, and it will familiarize students with the broader social and the institutional factors that influence technology development, uptake and diffusion in health care systems.

This seminar introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of science and society studies, which investigates how science both shapes and reflects social values, institutions, and policies. Drawing from diverse perspectives, including philosophers, historians, economists and scientists, the course will examine the relationship between science and society and provide critical tools and conceptual frameworks for addressing contemporary debates on how science should be practiced and disseminated for social benefit. The primary focus will be on the life sciences and health with occasional consideration of other areas of science and policy.

In this course we will examine how the production and consumption of energy are linked to questions of health. We will review how public health scholars, and academics from other disciplines have thought about energy. We will also examine what energy sustainability might mean in the face of repeated infrastructural failure and the concurrent loss of life. Finally, we will look to the past and present of nuclear energy, as a source of hope and a looming threat.

This course will explore health topics from the perspective of population health, politics and policy. Bridging domestic and international health topics and perspectives, the course will focus on controversial and complex health issues. The course will weave examples through various topics to demonstrate how politics and competing stakeholder interests can play a critical role in the public health and public policy response to health problems. The class sessions will be comprised of presentations by the instructors, visiting experts and students. Class discussion and presentation will be core elements of the course.

This course will critically examine the unequal distribution of disease and mortality in the United States along the axes of race, ethnicity, class and place. Through in-depth engagement with case studies, critical historical texts and public health literature we will explore why individuals from some race/ethnicities, class backgrounds, and geographies are more vulnerable to premature death and adverse outcomes than others. Student work will culminate in a policy memo and a presentation, allowing them to hone valuable skillsets for future participation in the research and policy processes.