Courses
HSOC About Registering for Courses
Offered: Spring 2010
IF YOU CANNOT REGISTER BECAUSE THE REGISTRAR SAYS THE COURSE IS FULL
If you cannot register because the course is "full," try to register for the course under one of the crosslists. For example, if you cannot get into STSC 253, try to register for it under HSOC 253, GRMN 253, GSOC 252, and/or COML 253. The Registrar software system reserves places for students under each crosslisting, and if all the slots are filled under one crosslisting, the system will tell you the course is "full" when you try to register for it. However, there might still be openings under one or more of the other crosslistings.
Try this strategy first. If after trying this strategy you cannot get into a course, then you may try asking the instructor for a permit (see below).
COURSE PERMITS
If you cannot register for a course because you are told you need a permit, or because a course is full, you may contact the instructor of the course to ask for a permit that will permit you to register despite the enrollment cap. Only instructors may give permission for you to get a permit for their course. Because permits increase the size of the course, instructors may refuse to give permits until after the semester begins and they have a better sense of how many students are actually showing up for class.
If you really want to get into a course that is full, you should attend the course and speak to the instructor and be patient during the first week of the semester. You may be able to register after the second or third class without a permit.
Permits are NEVER issued for LPS courses (any course tagged with .601 after the course number) before the second day of the semester.
LPS COURSES
Students from the College may take courses in LPS, the College of Liberal and Professional Studies. HOWEVER, LPS courses have strict quotas for College students until the second day of the term, at which time College students are free to register until the course if filled. After that, a College student may request a permit. Until then, permits are not issued for LPS courses.
HSOC Categories of Courses
Offered: Spring 2010
NEW COURSES
HSOC/STSC 022
HSOC/STSC 123
HSOC/STSC 226
HSOC/STSC 241
HSOC/STSC 323
HSOC/STSC 369
HSOCC/STSC 431
INTRODUCTORY COURSES
especially for premajors considering HSOC or STSC
HSOC/STSC 003
HSOC 010
HSOC/STSC 022 Freshman Seminar
HSOC 102
HSOC/STSC 110
HSOC/STSC 123
HSOC/STSC 179
STSC 182
REQUIRED COURSES FOR MAJORS OFFERED IN SPRING 2010
for HSOC
HSOC 010
HSOC 100
HSOC 238
HSOC 275
for STSC
STSC 003
Capstone Courses
HSOC 406
HSOC 407
HSOC 412
HSOC/STSC 420
HSOC/STSC 431
HSOC 437
LPS COURSES
HSOC 154.601 Medical Anthropology of Alchohol
HSOC 238.601 Medical Anthropology
HSOC 259.601 Intro Comp Alternative Medicine
HSOC 275.601 Medical Sociology
HSOC 356.601 HIV/AIDS in Africa
HSOC 001 Emergence of Modern Science
Cross-listed as HSOC 001, STSC 001
Offered: Fall 2009
Adams MW 11-12 + rec
Core requirement for STSC Major
Fulfills Sector IV or Sector VII requirement in the College
During the last 500 years, science has emerged as a central and transformative force that continues to reshape everyday life in countless ways. This introductory course will survey the emergence of the scientific world view from the Renaissance through the end of the 20th century. By focusing on the life, work, and cultural contexts of those who created modern science, we will explore their core ideas and techniques, where they came from, what problems they solved, what made them controversial and exciting, and how they related to contemporary religious beliefs, politics, art, literature, and music. The course is organized chronologically and thematically. In short, this is a “Western Civ” course with a difference, open to students at all levels.
HSOC 002 Medicine in History
Cross-listed as STSC 002 & HIST 036
Offered: Fall 2009
Barnes TR 10:30-12 + recitation
HSOC Core Discipline Course
Fulfills Sector II requirement in the College
This course surveys the history of medical knowledge and practice from antiquity to the present. No prior background in the history of science or medicine is required. The course has two principal goals: (1) to give students a practical introduction to the fundamental questions and methods of the history of medicine, and (2) to foster a nuanced, critical understanding of medicine’s complex role in contemporary society.
The course takes a broadly chronological approach, blending the perspectives of the patient, the physician, and society as a whole—recognizing that medicine has always aspired to “treat” healthy people as well as the sick and infirm. Rather than history "from the top down" or "from the bottom up," this course sets its sights on history from the inside out. This means, first, that medical knowledge and practice is understood through the personal experiences of patients and caregivers. It also means that lectures and discussions will take the long-discredited knowledge and treatments of the past seriously, on their own terms, rather than judging them by today’s standards. Required readings consist largely of primary sources, from elite medical texts to patient diaries. Short research assignments will encourage students to adopt the perspectives of a range of actors in various historical eras.
STSC 003 Technology and Society
Cross-listed as HSOC 003, SOCI 033
Offered: Spring 2010
Ensmenger TR 12-1:30
Core Course (required of all STSC majors)
Fulfills Sector I requirement
"We shape our technologies; thereafter they shape us."
This course surveys the ways in which technology has shaped our societies and our relations with the natural world. We will examine the origins and impact of technical developments throughout human history and across the globe--- from stone tools, agriculture, and cave painting to ancient cities, metallurgy, and aqueducts; from
windmills, cathedrals, steam engines and electricity to atom bombs, the internet, and genetic engineering. We will pay attention to the aesthetic, religious, and mythical dimensions of technological change, and consider the circumstances in which innovations emerge and their effects on social order, on the environment, and on the
ways humans understand themselves.
HSOC 010 Health and Societies
Offered: Spring 2010
Barnes TR 10:30-12
This course is required for all HSOC majors
Fulfills Sector IV requirement
This course is an introduction to the vocabulary, skills, and concepts basic to sociocultural studies of health and disease. While recognizing the importance of the biomedical model, particularly to Western civilization, the course asks students to explore other approaches and healing traditions. It does so by exploring how policy analysts, medical care providers, and scholars from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, history and sociology have crafted responses to such real world problems as malnutrition, epidemic disease, and the inequitable distribution of health resources.
STSC 022 Race, Genetics and Social Policy ~NEW~
Cross-listed as HSOC 022
Offered: Spring 2010
Cowan T 1:30-4:30 pm
Freshman Seminar
What box do you check if a form asks you to identify your race? Do you fall between boxes? Do you check two or three? or none? Do you refuse to answer the question even you can check one box?
"What is your race?" is a loaded question in American society, because racial identities have social, political and economic ramifications. This course is designed to examine the meanings of race, in particular the ones that have been thought to have a scientific or biological foundation. We will examine the origins of these questions of race from the end of the 19th century to the present, and the way that the genetic science of race has shaped social policy and has changed over time. Most of our focus will be on the United States, but we will also set these questions in a transnational perspective.
HSOC 049 Aids and Power *NEW*
Offered: Fall 2009
Crane R 3-6
Epidemics demonstrate the connections between people and places in dramatic and often tragic ways, with routes of contagion and intervention often throwing social, economic and political inequalities into sharp relief. In the last three decades AIDS has gone from an unknown and localized illness in central Africa to a mysterious “gay cancer” among young men in California and New York, to a worldwide pandemic that is transforming global health funding, pharmaceutical regulation, national demographics, international science, and social movements.
It is impossible to study HIV/AIDS without also engaging with questions of power. Since its inception, the epidemic has been said to travel along the ‘fault lines of society’, wreaking its greatest impact on individuals and communities already marginalized on the basis of economics, race, sexual orientation, gender, addiction, and/or geography. At the same time, HIV/AIDS has given rise to powerful new institutions and personalities in scientific research, humanitarian aid, and patient advocacy around the world.
In this course we will use readings in anthropology, sociology, history, and cultural studies to explore the science and politics of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. and globally. We will learn how power disparities have shaped disease risk, prevention, and access to treatment, but also examine ways in which people and communities have become empowered via HIV/AIDS, giving rise to new identities and social movements. We will explore how questions of scientific discovery, credit, and ownership have been refracted through AIDS science, and how the globalization of HIV research is engendering new power dynamics between wealthy former colonial powers and postcolonial nations that are “resource-poor” but “patient-rich.” Lastly, we will use HIV/AIDS as a lens through which to think about the dynamic relationship between power, the body, and the production of scientific and cultural knowledge.
HSOC 052 The Autism Epidemic: From cells to society *NEW*
Offered: Fall 2009
Mandell TR 3-4:30
Freshman Seminar
The CDC estimates that 1 in 150 children have autism. Three decades ago, this number was 1 in 5,000. The communities in which these children are identified in ever increasing numbers are ill prepared to meet their needs. Scientists have struggled to understand the causes of this disorder, its treatment, and why it appears to be rapidly increasing. Families, policy makers, schools and the healthcare system have argued bitterly in the press and in the courts about the best way to care for these children and the best ways to pay for this care.
In this class, we will use autism as a case study to understand how psychiatric and developmental disorders of childhood come to be defined over time, their biological and environmental causes identified, and treatments developed. We will also discuss the identification and care of these children in the broader context of the American education and healthcare systems. By the end of this course, it is expected that
students will:
--Be familiar with the presentation, epidemiology, causes and treatment of autism;
--Understand the strategies involved in advancing science in these areas;
--Understand the organization, financing and delivery of care to children with autism in the United States;
--Be able to critically evaluate related research;
--Make specific, practical suggestions about the next stages of autism research and ways to improve care.
HSOC 059 Medical Missionaries and Community Partners: Great Medical Missionaries to Community Partners: Great ideas in the name of Public Health
Offered: Fall 2009
Bream W 4-7
Global health is an increasingly popular goal for many modern leaders. Yet critics see evidence of a new imperialism in various aid programs. We will examine the evolution over time and place of programs designed to improve the health of underserved populations. Traditionally categorized as public health programs or efforts to achieve a just society, these programs often produce results that are inconsistent with these goals. We will examine the benefits and risks of past programs and conceptualize future partnerships on both a local and global stage. Students should expect to question broadly held beliefs about the common good and service. Ultimately we will examine the concept of partnership and the notion of community health, in which ownership, control, and goals are shared between outside expert and inside community member.
HSOC 100 Introduction to Sociological Research
Cross-listed as SOCI 100
Offered: Spring 2010
Smith MW 2-3 + rec
Fulfills HSOC Quantitative Requirement
Fulfills College Quantitative Requirement
[course originates in Sociology]
As a science, sociology uses various tools to establish knowledge about the social world, as one step in the process of producing explanatory (and ideally, predictive) theory. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to different sociological methods, including survey research and associated quantitative/statistical analysis, interviewing, ethnography, historical-comparative and archival research, experimentation, and computer simulation. We will review basic mechanics for applying these methods, and discuss the assumptions behind each and the kind of insight each yields.
HSOC 102 Bioethics
Cross-listed as SOCI 101
Offered: Spring 2010
Moreno MW 1-2 + recitation
Bioethics is intended to introduce students to the thorny issues that confront medicine and biotechnology in this time of rapid change. The first part of the course will be devoted to an overview of the standard principles of academic bioethics. We will then consider several clinical topics to which the principles may be applied, including abortion and end-of-life treatment. Next we will consider problems of human research ethics and a number of emerging fields of interest to bioethicists, such as stem cells and cloning, neuroscience, and bioethics in relation to national security. We conclude with a look at the recent alleged “politicization” of bioethics.
STSC 110 Science and Literature
Cross-listed as HSOC 110, ENGL 075, HIST 117
Offered: Spring 2010
Adams MW 11-12 + rec
Fulfills Sector III requirement
This course will explore the emergence of modern science fiction as a genre, the ways it has reflected our evolving conceptions of ourselves and the universe, and its role as the mythology of modern technological civilization. We will discuss such characteristic themes as utopias, the exploration of space and time, biological engineering, superman, robots, aliens, and other worlds -- and the differences between European and American treatment of these themes. The course is structured chronologically and thematically around a series of classic SF novels. Monday and Wednesday lectures will set the novels in historical, scientific, and thematic context; Friday sections will provide the opportunity for in-depth comparative discussion of the week’s readings.
HSOC 111 Health of Populations
Cross-listed as SOCI 111
Offered: Fall 2009
Preston MWF 11-12
Fulfills HSOC Quantitative Requirement
Fulfills College Quantitative Requirement
This course develops some of the major measures used to assess the health of populations and uses those measures to consider the major factors that determine levels of health in large aggregates. These factors include disease environment, medical technology, public health initiatives, and personal behaviors. The approach is comparative and historical and includes attention to differences in health levels among major social groups.
STSC 123 Darwin's Legacy ~NEW~
Cross-listed as HSOC 123
Offered: Spring 2010
Adams MW 9-10 + recitation
Fulfills Sector V (Living World) requirement
Darwin’s conceptions of evolution have become a central organizing principle of modern biology. This lecture course will explore the origins and emergence of his ideas, the scientific work they provoked, and their subsequent re-emergence into modern evolutionary theory. In order to understand the “big ideas,” approaches, and techniques that scientists have used to understand the living world, students will have the opportunity to read and engage with various classic primary sources by Darwin, Mendel, and others. The course will conclude with guest lectures on evolutionary biology today, emphasizing current issues, new methods, and recent discoveries. In short, this is a lecture course on the emergence of modern of evolutionary biology - its central ideas, their historical development, and their implications for the human future.
HSOC 135 The Politics of Food and Agriculture
Cross-listed as PSCI 135, GAFL 135
Offered: Fall 2009
Summers W 3:30-6:30
Academically Based Community Service (ABCS)
A Fox Leadership Program Seminar
This seminar will explore the politics and institutions that have shaped –and continue to shape-- food production, consumption and problems like food insecurity and obesity here in West Philadelphia and around the world. Students will use the readings and their community service experience to analyze the politics of food in many different arenas: from kitchens, farms, schools, and factories to corporate boardrooms, research institutions, children’s television, and international trade. The primary focus will be on American politics; but there will also be opportunities to develop international and comparative perspectives on food and agriculture issues. Academic course work will include weekly readings, class and blackboard participation, and several papers. Service work will include an individual or group project related to your service placement and a final report. Typically the first half of each class will be devoted to a discussion of the readings and the second either to group work and discussion of students’ service projects or to a course speaker.
The goals of this course are to help students develop an understanding of politics through a study of changes over time in how societies produce, distribute/ market and consume food with a special focus on American politics and food systems, and to use the community service component of the course to give students “hands-on” experience with organizing efforts and institutions related to the politics of food and to develop skills and knowledge important to effective citizenship.
HSOC 145 Comparative Medicine
Cross-listed as HIST 146
Offered: Fall 2009
Feierman MW 12-1 + rec
Fulfills Sector II, History and Tradition
Fulfills Cross-Cultural Analysis
This course explores the medical consequences of the interaction between Europe and the “non-West” It focuses on three parts of the world Europeans colonized: Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Today’s healing practices in these regions grew out of the interaction between the medical traditions of the colonized and those of the European colonizers. We therefore explore the nature of the interactions. What was the history of therapeutic practices that originated in Africa or South Asia? How did European medical practices change in the colonies? What were the effects of colonial racial and gender hierarchies on medical practice? How did practitioners of “non-Western” medicine carve out places for themselves? How did they redefine ancient traditions? How did patients find their way among multiple therapeutic traditions? How does biomedicine take a different shape when it is practiced under conditions of poverty, or of inequalities in power? How do today’s medical problems grow out of this history? This is a fascinating history of race and gender, of pathogens and conquerors, of science and the body. It tells about the historical and regional roots of today’s problems in international medicine.
HSOC 148 (Fall) Medicine & Lit 1650-1850
Cross-listed as ENGL 085
Offered: Fall 2009
Wahlert TR 4:30-6
What was it like to live with a serious illness in the eighteenth century? How have our cultural understandings of sickness and health changed over time? And how do historical images and literary representations of doctors, nurses, and sick people reveal and affect cultural assumptions about disease and medical authority? This course offers a comprehensive study of significant changes and continuities in the history of medicine, alongside works of literature that exemplify the shifting notions of the doctor and sickness in the Western medical tradition. In particular, we will focus on fictional sources (poetry, short stories, novels, and films) as well as on nonfictional accounts (journals, diaries, and documentaries) that explore the emotional and somatic aspects of conditions such as cancer, plague, hysteria, syphilis, and madness. As a transhistorical study of Western medicine from classical influences through the innovations of Paris Medicine, we will be concerned with the power of narratives to bring coherence and meaning to lives at moments of great physical and emotional crisis. Inspired by recent historiographical trends to study the history of medicine from the bottom up, this course moves away from a methodology that emphasizes the “great men of science” to one that centers on the concerns of sick persons. In reading works of literature by authors such as John Milton, Molière, Frances Burney, Daniel Defoe, and Dorothy Wordsworth, we will also study contemporaneous medical topics, including quackery, the history of midwifery, humoural theories of the body, advancements in autopsy, the elevation of the professional surgeon, and the clinical gaze. Assignments will include two short papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
HSOC 150 American Health Policy
Cross-listed as SOCI 152
Offered: Previous Semesters
Linker
This lecture course will introduce students to a broad range of topics that fall under the heading of American health policy. Its main emphasis will be on the history of health care in America from the U.S. Civil War to the present day. The primary objective of the course will be to consider why the United States is one of the only industrialized nations to have a private, non-nationalized health care system. Some of the themes addressed include: private health insurance (such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield), industrial health and workmen’s compensation, the welfare state (in Europe, Canada, and the U.S.), women’s health, especially maternal and infant care programs, Medicare/Medicaid, the Clinton Health Plan of 1993, injured soldiers and the Veterans Administration.
Syllabus
HSOC 154.601 Medical Anthropology of Alchohol Use
Cross-listed as ANTH 154.601
Offered: Spring 2010
Chrzan TR 4:30-6
LPS Course - See "About Registering for Courses" (scroll to the top of this page)
The morality, rights and responsibilities of alcohol use are hotly debated in the United States. The rhetoric of appropriate use ranges from Puritan-inspired abstinence campaigns, through health-promoting moderation arguments, to discourses legitimizing hedonism. The result of a lack of clear cultural paradigms for intoxicant use is clearly seen on college campuses, where movements for zero-tolerance alcohol bans coexist with social rituals that include binge drinking. The course will utilize medical anthropology theory to contextualize the phenomenon historically and cross-culturally and encourage students to critically analyze existing paradigms which determine acceptable usage and treatment modalities.
STSC 179 An introduction to environmental history
Cross-listed as ENVS 179, HIST 320, HSOC 179
Offered: Spring 2010
Greene TR 12-1:30
How are mosquitos, rivers and hurricanes historical actors? In most histories, they are part of the backdrop to human actions. In environmental history, a way of thinking about the interactions between humans and the natural world, the forces, places, beings and objects of the non-human world are essential to understanding how history happens.
This is a course about the history of nature in the human world, and a history of humans in the natural world. How has nature acted in human history and why? How have humans acted in natural history and why? Where do our ideas about "nature" come from and how do they shape how human act on the environment? I
This course examines both global and American history, looking at how and why environments and ideas about "nature" change over time. It is intended as a broad introduction to a significant, interdisciplinary field of history. We examine how this historical knowledge develops through readings and research. Topics include energy, health and disease, consumption, economic development and the history of environmentalism and environmental law, using sources from history, literature, art, polemic and memoir. There will be short papers, discussion of readings, and a research project.
HSOC 212 Science, Technology and Warfare
Cross-listed as HSOC 212, STSC 212
Offered: Fall 2009
Hersh W 5:30-8:30
This is an LPS course. Students from the College may register beginning the 2nd day of the fall term.
In this survey we explore the relationships between technical knowledge and war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We attend particularly to the centrality of bodily injury in the history of war. Topics include changing interpretations of the machine gun as inhumane or acceptable; the cult of the battleship; banned weaponry; submarines and masculinity; industrialized war and total war; trench warfare and mental breakdown; the atomic bomb and Cold War; chemical warfare in Viet Nam; and "television war" in the 1990s.
HSOC 226 Science, Medicine and Technology in Modern South Asia ~NEW~
Cross-listed as SAST 289, STSC 226
Offered: Spring 2010
Petrie TR 3-4:30
This course examines the history of science, technology and medicine in the Indian subcontinent from ca. 1750 to the present. The first half of the semester will focus on the period of British dominance, considering such topics as: the role of science, medicine and technology in colonial rule and anti-colonial nationalism; Western understandings of and impacts upon Indian environments; the relationship between Western and indigenous forms of knowledge. The second half of the course will examine the post-colonial period, with a particular focus on development and environmental issues and the policies of the governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
HSOC 230 Fundamentals of Epidemiology
Offered: Spring 2010
Kanetsky T 1:30-4:30
This course introduces students to the basic tenets of epidemiology and how to quantitatively study health at the population level. Students learn about measures used to describe populations with respect to health outcomes and the inherent limitations in these measures and their underlying sources of data. Analytic methods used to test scientific questions about health outcomes in populations then are covered, again paying particular attention to the strength and weaknesses of the various approaches.
In general, the first half of the weekly session is used for lecture, while the second half is used either as “lab” to discuss homework or to expose students to practical applications of epidemiological methods through guest lectures. An introductory epidemiology textbook and materials available on Blackboard provide the backbone for the course lectures. Homework sets are due throughout the semester, and students will sit for a midterm and final examination. The final two class sessions typically are student-led during which group presentations are given.
HSOC 232 Social Epidemiology
Offered: Previous Semesters
Cannuscio R 1:30-4:30
HSOC 238 Medical Anthropology
Cross-listed as ANTH 238
Offered: Fall 2009
Barg MW 2-3 + recitation
HSOC Core Discipline Course
Introduction to medical anthropology takes central concepts in anthropology -- culture, adaptation, human variation, belief, political economy, the body -- and applies them to human health and illness. Students explore key elements of healing systems including healing technologies and healer-patient relationships. Modern day applications for medical anthropology are stressed.
HSOC 238.601 An Introduction to Medical Anthropology
Cross-listed as ANTH 238
Offered: Spring 2010
Schug M 5:30-8:30
LPS Course - See "About Registering for Courses" (scroll to the top of this page)
STSC 241 Stem Cells, Science, and Society ~NEW~
Cross-listed as HSOC 241
Offered: Spring 2010
Gearhart/Zaret TR 10:30-12
Stem cells have dominated the news in biomedical news over the past decade impacting on many aspects of society: medicine, ethics, religion, law, politics, economics and education. Stem cells serve as the premier example for a number of critical and controversial issues at the interface of scientific research and society.
This course is intended for undergraduates (upperclassmen) who are not majoring in the sciences. It will focus on the biological sciences as they relate to human biology and the quest for medical therapies. Discussion topics include: what is science and the scientific process; who are scientists; some basic science to understand the complexity of cells and of organisms; where do we get our basic science from; how we develop, maintain and repair ourselves but eventually die; the importance of stem cells in life’s events; status reports on major disease processes and current treatments; our hopes for the future in developing a variety of therapies; the ethics and moral concerns about the conductance of science research and its application to patients; who makes science policy; who funds biomedical research and who benefits; and who decides on what can be done with patients and patient information. The goal of the course is an informed citizenry.
HSOC 242 Science of Sex and Sexuality
Cross-listed as GSOC 242, STSC 242, HSOC 242
Offered: Spring 2010
Lundeen TR 3:00-4:30
[course originates in Gender, Culture, and Society]
HSOC 253 Freud: The Invention of Psychoanalysis
Cross-listed as GRMN 253, HSOC 253, STSC 253, GSOC 252, COML 253
Offered: Spring 2010
L.Weissberg TR 10:30-12 + recitation
Fulfills Sector IV
[course originates in the German department]
Probably no other person of the twentieth century has influenced scientific thought, humanistic scholarship, medical therapy, and popular culture as much as Sigmund Freud. This lecture course will study his work, its cultural background, and its impact on us today. In the first part of the course, we will learn about Freud's life and the Viennese culture of his time. We will then move to a discussion of seminal texts, such as excerpts from his Interpretation of Dreams, case studies, as well as essays on psychoanalytic practice, human development, neuroses, and culture in general. In the final part of the course, we will discuss the impact of Freud's work. Guest lecturers from the medical field, history of science, psychology, and the humanities will offer insights into the reception of Freud's work, and its consequences for various fields of study and therapy.
HSOC 259.601 Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Offered: Spring 2010
Mackenzie W 6-9
LPS Course - See "About Registering for Courses" (scroll to the top of this page)
This course will introduce the student to the study of complementary and alternative medicine (or CAM). In addition to providing an overview of several common modalities and systems currently used in the U.S., the course will explore such topics as health belief systems, spirituality and health, ethnicity and ethnomedicine, the social context of health, and the emergence of integrative medicine. Guest lectures by CAM and folk practitioners will be offered throughout the course.
HSOC 275.601 Medical Sociology
Cross-listed as SOCI 275
Offered: Spring 2010
Joyce W 6-9
HSOC Core Discipline Course
LPS Course - See "About Registering for Courses" (scroll to the top of this page)
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the sociological study of medicine. Although the field of medical sociology is broad, we will attempt to cover as much of the field as possible through four central thematic units: (i) the profession of medicine, (ii) the organization and delivery of health care, (iii) social and cultural factors in defining illness, and (iv) the social causes of illness. Along the way, we will encourage the application of a sociological perspective to a variety of contemporary medical issues.
HSOC 311 Science, Medicine and the Media
Cross-listed as HSOC 311
Offered: Fall 2009
Wolfe, Audra W 3:30-6:30
This course is an introduction to the history and the contemporary state of science journalism. Public understanding of science, medicine and technology is critical to a society that must make informed decisions about health, the environment, and economic growth, but the relationship between science and the public is complex. The course explores not only how books, newspapers, television, films, podcasts, and blogs have shaped our understanding of science and scientists, but also the contexts in which these media are created.
HSOC 323 Writing Science ~NEW~
Cross-listed as STSC 323, ENGL 275
Offered: Spring 2010
Mills W 2-5
This course surveys the interdisciplinary field of Science and Literature Studies, with an emphasis on the modern life and physical sciences (19th century to the present). During the first part of the semester, we will examine literary responses to science: the “two cultures” debate; the impact of scientific and technical changes on literary practices; representations of science in fiction. In the second half of the course, we will consider science as literature: scientific rhetoric and standards of authorship; inscription or writing technologies in laboratories; scientists as authors of popular literature; the impact of futurism and speculative fiction on science. Course readings will be drawn from fiction, the life and physical sciences, literary theory, and the history of science.
Authors will include some of these: C.P. Snow, Mary Shelley, Laura Otis, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, N. Katherine Hayles, Norbert Wiener, Octavia Butler, Gillian Beer, Charles Darwin, George Eliot, Lisa Gitelman, Lily Kay, James Watson, Richard Powers, Bruno Latour, Colin Milburn, K. Eric Drexler, Emily Martin, Leo Szilard and Evelyn Fox Keller.
HSOC 332 Contemporary Issues in Human Sexuality
Cross-listed as NURS 303
Offered: Spring 2010
Guidera MW 3-4:30
course originates in Nursing
HSOC 335 Healthy Schools, “the Achievement Gap,” and the Politics of Urban School Reform
Cross-listed as PSCI 335
Offered: Spring 2010
Summers W 3:30-6:30
ABCS course
course originates in Political Science
This Fox Leadership and academically based community service seminar will examine the assumptions behind and the results of key policy initiatives directed towards addressing “the achievement gap” and creating “healthier school environments” in the light of course readings and service activities at Lea School in West Philadelphia. Course readings will include works by Jonathan Kozol with his critique of the nation’s failure to address racial and class segregation and under-funding in urban schools. We will also examine studies of the impact of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation and its mandates for school achievement in contrast with the decentralized, grass roots approach to improving school health environments promoted by the Center for Disease Control’s School Health Index with its on-line rubric for establishing a Coordinated School Health Council and an evaluation and planning process for individual schools. A former teacher and GSE graduate student will supervise class service projects at Lea School at 47th and Locust. Options will include work with the Lea Recess Initiative, an anti-bullying program, the Urban Nutrition Initiative, and the After School Program on health focused programming. Speakers will include individuals who are taking leadership in efforts to improve the health environment in urban schools. Students will write several short papers based on course readings and present group reports on the service projects. (A research paper is optional.)
HSOC 338 "Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters": Social Issues and Images in our Aging Society
Cross-listed as NURS 338, GSOC 338
Offered: Spring 2010
Kagan W 4-7
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
course originates in Nursing
This honors course examines social issues and consequences of advancing age in the 21st century. The examination is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique social images, constructions and processes. Contemporary and
historical ideas ranging from stereotypes of the dirty old man and the sweet little old lady to language of intergenerational conflict and the sandwich generation are all material for building those foundations. Resources used include classical works in social gerontology and emerging research in aging studies and related fields. These works and those selected by the student are viewed through a critical lens built from understandings of diverse individual, familial, cultural and societal notions of aging and human experience and drawing on student and faculty background and life experience. Skills for participant
observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection of current representations of aging and being old in contrast to the contemporary and historical ideas gleaned from the literature.
HSOC 339 "Aging, Beauty, and Sexuality": Psychological Gerontology in the 21st Century
Cross-listed as NURS 339, GSOC 339
Offered: Spring 2010
Kagan T 4-7
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
course originates in Nursing
This honors course examines the psychological gerontology of advancing age and identity in the 21st century. Examination emphasizes gendered notions of beauty and sexuality in ageing and the life span to foster discourse around historical notions and images of beauty and ugliness in late life in contrast to contemporary messages of attractiveness and age represented by both women and men. The course is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique socially mediated and personally conveyed images and messages from a variety of media and their influence on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructions and social processes. Contemporary and historical ideas encompassing stereotypical and idealized views of the older person are employed to reflect dialogue around readings and field work. Classical and contemporary scholarship from gerontology, anthropology, biomedicine and surgery, nursing, and marketing among other disciplines as well as select lay literature are critiqued and compared with interpretation of field work to build understandings of diverse individual, familial, and cultural impressions of aging and identity. Skills for participant observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection and analysis of discourse about aging, beauty, sexuality, and other relevant aspects of human identity.
HSOC 351 The History of the Doctor-Patient Relationship
Offered: Fall 2009
Walls T 1:30-4:30
This course will examine the nature and history of the doctor-patient relationship from the era of Hippocrates through the present. The doctor- patient relationship has evolved in a parallel fashion to the practice of medicine and its institutions. Historical, cultural, scientific, social and economic forces have impacted it and shaped it into what it is today. The goal is to better understand the complicated and often controversial relationship between doctor and patient.
The course will trace these developments and their implications for this complex and intimate relationship. Lecture, discussion, film and group participation will be utilized and guest speakers may be utilized. Course materials will include some fiction as well as a series of readings. Course requirements include several written assignments, a group presentation and a final paper/project.
HSOC 353 Greek and Roman (Ancient) Medicine
Cross-listed as CLST 371
Offered: Previous Semesters
Rosen MW 3:30-5:00
[from the Classical Studies department]
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
HSOC 356.601 HIV/AIDS in Africa
Cross-listed as AFST 323, HSOC 356
Offered: Spring 2010
Mathangwane T 4:30-7:30
LPS Course - See "About Registering for Courses" (scroll to the top of this page)
STSC 369 Nanotechnology and Society ~NEW~
Offered: Spring 2010
Roberts R 4:30-7:30
One nanometer is about ten hydrogen atoms long. So "nanotechnology" is the art of building useful tools out of very small numbers of atoms. This class will investigate what is being done in nanotechnology, and what is being forecast for its potential. We will take a long look at the prehistory of nanotechnology, then map out what institutions and groups have a stake in the field. Throughout the course, we will discuss the ways that nanotechnology is a product of society, and the ways its products in turn change society. Topics include: microelectronics and Moore's Law; futurism and science fiction; controversies and public perception; government sponsorship of nano; universities and commerce.
HSOC 381 Nonstranger Violence *NEW*
Cross-listed as STSC 381, GSOC 381
Offered: Fall 2009
Sorenson T 1:30-4:30
The purpose of this course is for students to learn about the definitions, conceptual frameworks, myths, processes, consequences, and societal interventions regarding violence in relationships. Using a life course perspective, addressing abuse from childhood through late life, the course will examine how gender and generational differences in resource distribution, role expectations, etc. shape the occurrence, experience, and response to violence in relationships.
Fall 2009 Syllabus
HSOC 404 Urban Environment: West Philadelphia
Cross-listed as ENVS 404
Offered: Fall 2009
Pepino TR 10:30-12
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, impaired hearing, behavioral problems and at very high levels, seizures, coma and even death. Young children up to the age of six are especially at risk because of their developing systems. They often ingest lead chips and dust while playing in their home and yards.
In ENVS 404, Penn undergraduates will learn about the epidemiology of lead poisoning, the pathways of exposure, and methods for community outreach and education. Penn students will collaborate with middle school and high school teachers in West Philadelphia to engage middle school children in exercises that apply environmental research relating to lead poisoning to their homes and neighborhoods.
HSOC 406 Community-Based Environmental Health
Cross-listed as ENVS 406
Offered: Spring 2010
Pepino TR 1:30-3
ABCS Course
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
Fulfills the STSC and HSOC Capstone requirement
course originates in Earth and Environmental Sciences
Over the last 20 years, the field of environmental health has matured and expanded to become one of the most comprehensive and humanly relevant disciplines in science. The environment affects health more strongly than biological factors, medical care and lifestyle. The water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe are all components of the environment. Some estimates, based on morbidity and mortality statistics, indicate that the environment contributes to more than 80 percent of health effects ; one clear example is asthma. Asthma data in Philadelphia suggest that about 10 percent of all children suffer asthma episodes during any given year, while up 22 percent of the City’s minority populations experience asthmatic attacks during the year. The existing regional air quality, both out-door and in-door, are clearly the overriding factors that exacerbate this urban epidemic.
Students in the University of Pennsylvania’s ABCS program will partner with a variety of residents and experts in the West Philadelphia communities to identify the most important environmental health issues in the area. Environmental Health is defined as the impact of a person’s surroundings and lifestyle on their health. Environmental factors can include air, water, toxic agents, infectious agents, nutrition, and housing. Your participation in this course will help to identify and clarify the important environmental health issues in our community, and your challenge will be to develop reasonable and practical solutions to reduce risks to vulnerable populations that are living in the Penn community.
This course will not only examine the toxicity of physical agents, but also the effects of lifestyle, social and economic factors, and the current environment on human health. Selected topics in previous years have included endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs); the reciprocal relationships between of nutrition, obesity, and physical exercise; children’s environmental health issues; licensed and unlicensed day care centers; indoor air quality; occupational health risks; and environmental justice issues concerning the exposure to hazardous materials.
HSOC 407 Urban Environments: Prevention of Tobacco Smoking in Adolescents
Cross-listed as ENVS 407
Offered: Spring 2010
Kulik TR 10:30-12
Capstone Course
ABCS Course
course originates in Earth and Environmental Sciences
Smoking kills more people in the United States each year than car accidents, alcohol, AIDS, murders, illegal drugs and suicides COMBINED. Approximately 90 percent of adult smokers began smoking before age 18. Every day, more than 4,000 kids under the age of 18 try their first cigarette; more than 1,140 become daily smokers. While tobacco use among high school students declined from 2000 to 2007, according to the CDC in 2007, tobacco use among middle school students remained steady at 6 percent with high school students at 19% for females and 21% for males.
In ENVS 407, students take a multidisciplinary approach to examining the health effects of tobacco, within an environmental and public health context. Lectures and readings cover the history of tobacco, social trends, usage among adolescents and college students, pharmacology of nicotine and the resulting medical disorders, marketing, the legal battles and the tobacco settlement. Knowledge gained through class discussions and readings will be applied during fieldwork and practical experience: As an Academically Based Community Service Course, Penn students collaborate with school teachers in West Philadelphia to engage eighth and ninth graders in exercises that demonstrate the consequences of tobacco addiction, and which will educate students in Drew, Huey, West Philly High, and Sayre schools about the hazards of smoking before they begin. Additionally, students will conduct field research to assess attitudes and measure accessibility to tobacco products in the West Philadelphia area.
HSOC 408 Urban Asthma Epidemic
Cross-listed as ENVS 408
Offered: Fall 2009
Kulik TR 1:30-3
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
Asthma as a pediatric chronic disease is undergoing a dramatic and unexplained increase. It has become the #1 cause of public school absenteeism and now accounts for a significant number of childhood deaths each year in the USA. The Surgeon General of the United States has characterized childhood asthma as an epidemic. In ENVS 408, Penn undergraduates learn about the epidemiology of urban asthma, the debate about the probable causes of the current asthma crisis, and the nature and distribution of environmental factors that modern medicine describes as potential triggers of asthma episodes.
Penn students will collaborate with the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on a clinical research study entitled the Community Asthma Prevention Program. The Penn undergraduates will co-teach with CHOP parent educators asthma classes offered at community centers in Southwest, West, and North Philadelphia. The CHOP study gives the Penn students the opportunity to apply their study of the urban asthma epidemic to real world situations.
HSOC 412 Traditional Medicine in South Asia
Cross-listed as SAST 387
Offered: Spring 2010
Sharma TR 1:30-3
Capstone Course
course originates in South Asian Studies
In South Asia, traditional medical systems (Ayurveda, Unani, and Siddha) have deep affiliation with scientific, philosophical, religious and cultural systems. This course will examine the historic origins and socio-cultural dimensions of these systems. Topics will include the encounter between traditional and Western medicine in the nineteenth century; twentieth century revival and professionalizing activities in the traditional systems; state and central government support for education, services and research in traditional medicine; their role in the overall health care system; and their use by patients in urban and rural areas. We will consider the world-wide interest in complementary and alternative medicine as it relates to South Asian medical systems.
HSOC 420 Research Seminar in HSOC
Cross-listed as STSC 420
Offered: Spring 2010
Cowan W 2-5
Capstone Course
[Required for students who plan to write a senior thesis for honors]
This research methods seminar helps students develop skills crucial to independent research and to senior thesis development. The course combines focused reading, critical analysis of key texts, small-group projects, and writing and research exercises. Students can use this course to develop a plan for a senior research project, and to produce a polished thesis prospectus and literature review that can guide their thesis work over their senior year. They carry out a literature review and research plan for a thesis topic. This course fulfills the Capstone research requirement for students writing a senior thesis.
HSOC 421 Medicine and Development
Cross-listed as HIST 471
Offered: Fall 2009
Feierman T 1:30-4:30
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
This course includes readings and research on how medicine relates to the process of development in resource-poor countries. The first eight weeks of the semester are taken up with a combination of readings and research planning. The remainder of the semester is given over to the development and presentation of research projects. Students are expected not only to complete their own projects, but also to participate as consultants in the research of others.
Readings will include studies of the relationship between poverty and health, studies of particular diseases and efforts to eradicate them, discussions of gender and health priorities, and debates over the proper balance between economic growth and health initiatives in poor countries.
We will also look at searching critiques of the entire development process. James Ferguson, in The Anti-Politics Machine, for example, argues that the role of technical expertise in development planning is to remove fundamental political issues from the democratic process, and to make them technical questions that are outside politics.
Students will have the opportunity to shape, develop, and complete their own research projects. Research methods, problems, and results, will be discussed in class all through the semester
HSOC 430 Disease and Society
Cross-listed as STSC 430
Offered: Fall 2009
Aronowitz R 1:30-4:30
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
What is disease? How do the beliefs, politics, and economies of particular societies shape how diseases are defined, experienced, and treated? In this seminar, students will ask and answer these questions by analyzing historical documents, scientific reports, and historical scholarship (primarily 19th and 20th century U.S. and European). We will look at disease from as a biological process, clinical entity, population phenomenon, historical actor, and personal experience. We will pay special attention to how diseases have been recognized, diagnosed, named, and classified in different eras, cultures, and professional settings. The course will begin with a review of major approaches to understanding the relationship between disease and society. The remainder of the course will view disease and society relationships through the lens of specific issues, such as epidemic disease, social and environmental determinants of health, globalization, risk, and prevention. Special attention will be given to developing analytic and writing skills through the reading and writing of review essays.
STSC 431 Cold War Science and Medicine ~NEW~
Cross-listed as HSOC 431
Offered: Spring 2010
Wolfe T 4:30-7:30
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
During the Cold War, science, technology, and medicine occupied a central place in the developing and maintaining state power. The incorporation of science into the apparatus of the Cold War state changed the ways that scientists studied, worked, and communicated with each other and the public. But beyond such practical concerns, scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union had to confront the question of what it meant to pursue natural knowledge in a militarized state. No nation or political system could survive without the weapons, medicines, foodstuffs, and consumer producers made possible by modern scientific research—yet science was supposedly an international system free from the dictates of politics.
This course explores the contradictions of Cold War science and medicine. As a Capstone course, students will have the opportunity to devise and complete a research project on some aspect of this topic. The first half of the course will focus on readings; the second half will focus on student projects and presentations. Writing assignments throughout the semester will lead up to the final project. There are no exams.
HSOC 437 Cultural Models and Health
Cross-listed as ANTH 437
Offered: Spring 2010
Barg M 2-5
Capstone Course
[course originates in Anthropology]
There is a great deal of variation among population groups in the incidence of and mortality from most major diseases. Biological and social factors can account for some of this variation. However, there is increasing evidence that behavior- and the cultural models that are linked to health behavior- play an important role too. Cognitive anthropology is the study of how people in social groups conceive of objects and events in their world. It provides a framework for understanding how members of different groups categorize illness and treatment. It also helps to explain why risk perception, helpseeking behavior, and decision making styles vary to the extent they do. This seminar will explore the history of cognitive anthropology, schema theory, connectionism, the role of cultural models, and factors affecting health decision making. Methods for identifying cultural models will be discussed and practiced. Implications for health communication will be discussed.
HSOC 441 Cross-Cultural Approaches to Health and Illness
Cross-listed as ANTH 441
Offered: Previous Semesters
Barg W 2-5
[from the Anthropology Department]
Capstone Course
This course will explore the ways that health and illness-related beliefs and behaviors develop within communities. We will identify the forces that shape these beliefs and behaviors and ultimately affect who gets sick, who gets well, and the very nature of the illness experience. Emphasis will be given to the relationships among sociocultural, political and biological factors and the ways that these factors interact to produce the variation that we see in health and illness related attitudes, behaviors and outcomes across cultures.
HSOC 471 Guns and Health *NEW*
Cross-listed as STSC 471, PUBH 534
Offered: Fall 2009
Sorenson M 2-5
Fulfills the HSOC and STSC Capstone requirement
The purpose of this course is for students to gain an understanding of:
▪ the role of guns in health, and
▪ population and prevention approaches to violence.
The course will include a focus on policies and regulations related to firearms, the primary mechanism by which violence-related fatalities occur in the U.S. We will address the life span of a gun, from design and manufacture through to use. In addition, we will address key aspects of the social context in which firearms exist and within which firearm policy is made.
Particulars: Readings posted on Blackboard. No books, no exams. Two field experiences 1) learning about gun safety & firing a range of weapons at a shooting range; 2) learning about firearm sales via gun store, gun show, or websites. One field report, one short paper, one longer paper. The final paper, if a longer research proposal, can be used to fulfill the HSOC Capstone requirement.
Note: Previous versions of this course have been given at UCLA, and at Penn in Criminology.
HSOC 499 Independent Study
Offered: Spring 2009
Staff
In order to receive permission to register for an independent study, a student must submit a form to the department that outlines the project and is signed by the supervisor.
Independent Study Request Form
HSSC 533 Folk and Alternative Health Systems
Cross-listed as FOLK 533, RELS 505
Offered: Spring 2010
Hufford T 1:30-4:30
[from Religious Studies Department]
This course will offer students the opportunity to critically examine representative complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) health beliefs and practices found within the United States and their cultural position in American society. These will range from cosmopolitan systems such as chiropractic and traditional Chinese Medicine to folk medicine. The philosophical and theoretical premises behind these health systems will be analyzed and compared to the premises of conventional, Western medicine and
to one another. This will include a description and discussion of current models for understanding health behavior. Ethical issues and practical applications of this knowledge will also be discussed. The materials and methods of the course will draw on the literatures of the social sciences, history, philosophy, the allied health
professions and medicine.
