Courses
HSOC SCHEDULE CHANGES/ADDITIONS
Offered: Fall 2008
HSOC 002 has a new schedule and instructor (STSC 002)
HSOC 140 has a new schedule and instructor (STSC 148)
HSOC 321 WILL be offered in Fall 2008 (ANTH 312)
HSOC 421 is CANCELLED (HIST 471)
HSOC Capstone Courses
Offered: Fall 2008
HSOC 404 Urban Environment
HSOC 408 Urban Asthma Epidemic
HSOC 410 Health Policy in South Asia (SAST 385)
STSC 422 Politics and U.S. Science Policy
STSC 425 Philosophy of Science
HSOC 430 Disease and Society
HSOC 438 Development and Global Health
HSOC Freshman Seminars
Offered: Fall 2008
HSOC 039 The Healer's Tale
HSOC 042 Snip and Tuck
HSOC 050 Mad, Sad and Bad
STSC 052 Superman! A History of Eugenics
STSC 088 Who Owns the Past?
HSOC Introductory Courses
Offered: Fall 2008
HSOC 001 Emergence of Modern Science
HSOC 002 Medicine in History
HSOC 100 Introduction to Sociological Research
HSOC 101 Bioethics
HSOC 135 Politics of Food
HSOC 140 History of Bioethics
HSOC 145 Comparative Medicine
STSC 160 The Information Age
HSOC NEW COURSES
HSOC 032 The Healer's Tale (Freshman Seminar)
HSOC 311 Science, Medicine and the Media (STSC 311)
STSC 419 Rethinking Science vs. Religion
STSC 001 Emergence of Modern Science
Cross-listed as HSOC 001
Offered: Fall 2008
Adams MW 11-12 + rec
Fulfills college requirement for Sector IV: Humanities and Social Science (class of 2010 and after)
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 2008
Linker MW 9-10
***THIS COURSE HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED, PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME!***
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 2008
Ensmenger TR 12-1:30
Core Course (required of all STSC majors)
"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.
STSC 008 "According to the Kinsey Report...": The Politics of Sex and Science in Modern America
Cross-listed as HSOC 008
Offered: Spring 2008
Burnett M 3:30-6:30
Critical Speaking Seminar
Want to work on your public speaking skills? You will have a hard time keeping quiet in a critical speaking course about sex and science. We will examine how scientific research has influenced common conceptions of sex differences and sexual behavior during the last century, and how this knowledge in turn has shaped cultural conceptions of gender roles and “normal” behavior. Students will discuss, debate, and deliver formal presentations about these questions as we examine moments from the history of psychiatry, sexology, ethology, anthropology, endocrinology, genetics, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and neuro-endocrinology.
Syllabus
HSOC 010 Health and Societies
Cross-listed as STSC 010
Offered: Spring 2008
Barnes TR 10:30-12 + recitation
Foundational Course (required for all HSOC majors)
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.
HSOC 039 The Healer's Tale: Negotiating Trust in Modern America
Offered: Fall 2008
Tighe R 1:30-4:30
Freshman Seminar
What makes you a healer? Is it what you know? Is it what you do? Is it the trust placed in you by those who seek healing? Is it the power vested in you by the state? Rarely in contemporary debate do we speak of healing power in such terms, instead we talk of such things as licenses, educational credentials, peer review and when we are in a darker mood quacks, and malpractice.
How have individuals in the United States laid claim to the authority that is necessary for assuming the role of healer? The answers to these questions have changed dramatically over the last century and have involved intense negotiations between various interested parties, not the least of whom are the persons seeking healing. In addition, such powerful disciplines as science, medicine and the law have been involved in these discussions. By examining the history of these negotiations, with some forays into literature, film and popular culture, a healer’s tale will emerge. As it does, we will gain a clearer understanding of the fundamental socio-economic and cultural patterns that have shaped the American culture of healing.
HSOC 042 Snip and Tuck: A History of Surgery
Offered: Fall 2008
Linker W 2-5
Freshman Seminar
Before the discovery of anesthesia in the nineteenth century, surgery was often a grizzly and horrific affair, inevitably involving extreme pain. Surgeons had a reputation as dirty, blood-thirsty “barbarians,” and patients rarely sought out their services. But all of this changed during the twentieth century. Today surgery is one of the most prestigious medical specialties, and patients—especially those who long to look younger, thinner, and trimmer—voluntarily submit to multiple procedures. This course will investigate the cultural and scientific sources of these dramatic changes, with readings ranging from graphic descriptions of “bonesetting” and suturing during the Middle Ages to contemporary accounts of childbirth and plastic surgery in antiseptic hospitals and clinics.
HSOC 050 Mad, Bad and Sad: Mental Disorders in Children
Offered: Fall 2008
Mandell TR 3-4:30
Freshman Seminar
The idea that mental disorders affect children is relatively new. Over the last 100 years, public and professional groups have taken very differentapproaches to determining what constitutes psychopathology in children andwhat to do about it. By current thinking, as many as 1 in ten childrenexperiences psychopathology impairing enough to require treatment. Thisclass attempts to impart an understanding of the epidemiology, presentationand treatment of common mental disorders affecting children and the systemsin which these children receive care. By the end of this course, studentswill: 1) Be familiar with the epidemiology, presentation and treatment of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression and substance abuse; 2) Understand the organization, financing and delivery of mentalhealth services to children in the United States; 3) Be able to criticallyevaluate related research, and; 4) Make specific, practical suggestions for ways to improve care to children with mental disorders.
STSC 052 Superman! A History of Eugenics in American Culture, 1900-Present
Cross-listed as HSOC 052
Offered: Fall 2008
Cogdell M 2-5
Freshman Seminar
Did you know that "To Breed a Race of Thoroughbreds" was an early motto of Planned Parenthood, an organization formed to promote birth control explicitly for the poor? Did you know that up until 1983, it was still legal to subject people in state mental institutions to involuntary reproductive sterilization, and that over 60,000 individuals in the U.S. have undergone this process? "Eugenics" means to be "well-born," and prior to the existence of genetics as we know it today, the eugenics movement aimed to "improve" the nation's population by limiting the reproduction of the "unfit" and encouraging that of the "fit." Its ideals infiltrated popular culture, literature, comics, and the arts, and formed the rationale for many state and federal laws. Yet, who decides who is "fit" or "unfit"? What are the traits of a Superman or a Wonder Woman? Are eugenic ideals a thing of the past, or does today's genetic engineering offer us the possibility of creating "designer children"? This course examine the history of attempts to direct the course of human evolution toward genetic "improvement," as manifested in American science, politics, and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
HSOC 058 What is Cancer? Disease, Society, History (Freshman Seminar)
Offered: Spring 2008
Aronowitz R 1:30-4:30
Freshman Seminar
What is cancer? What causes cancer? What do its high prevalence and devastating effects tell us about ourselves and our society? What can we do about it? Laboratory researchers, epidemiologists, public health officials, medical specialists, environmental activists, and cancer patients have offered different and incomplete answers to such questions. Students will learn about these different perspectives by analyzing historical documents and scholarship from different disciplines and professions, meeting with health professionals and others, and doing writing and research assignments.
HSOC 100 Introduction to Sociological Research
Offered: Spring 2008
Grazian MW 11-12 + rec
Satisfies HSOC Quantitative Requirement
This course provides a board overview of how sociologists gather and analyze information to generate and test hypotheses about the social world. We begin by covering key building blocks of sociological research: theory, measurement, and sampling. Then, we review a variety of research designs and analytic approaches. Finally, we take a critical perspective on social research discussing topics of research ethics, objectivity, and whether research findings should be used to inform policy. The emphasis in the course will be on training students to develop a healthy skepticism and to be intelligent consumers, and we will regularly discuss and evaluate research examples found in mainstream news sources. Students will also gain hands on experience with survey and qualitative research through course research products.
Syllabus
HSOC 101 Bioethics
Cross-listed as SOCI 101, PHIL 072
Offered: Fall 2008
Martin MW 11-12 + rec
This course will introduce students to the complex and tough issues that confront medicine and biotechnology in this time of rapid advances in the life sciences. We will begin with a comprehensive analysis of the history of bioethics and of leading bioethics theories, complemented by often provocative videos and Web-based materials. We will introduce the great topics in the bioethical debate, such as reproductive technologies, euthanasia, abortion, genetic manipulation, gamete donation, reproductive surrogacy and innovative treatments. Ethical challenges posed by new technologies such as cloning, stem cell research, assisted reproductive technology, nanotechnology and neurotechnology, will be discussed. We will also look at how new treatments are developed, and address controversial issues about the ways we are born, receive medical care, and die in the United States. After completion of this course, students will comeaway with a thorough understanding of the history of modern bioethics and of its major schools of thought. Students will have a robust knowledge of what the traditional and current topics of debate in biomedical ethics are, and how physicians, philosophers, policymakers and other stakeholders discuss and attempt to resolve these issues.
STSC 110 Science and Literature
Cross-listed as HSOC 110, ENGL 075, HIST 117
Offered: Spring 2008
Adams MW 11-12 + rec
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 2008
Preston MWF 11-12
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.
HSOC 135 The Politics of Food and Agriculture
Cross-listed as PSCI 135, GAFL 135
Offered: Fall 2008
Summers W 3:30-6:30
ABCS course
Fox Leadership Program Seminar
This academically based community service and Fox Leadership Program 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. A focus on the role of leadership in food and agricultural politics will include guest speakers, especially with regard to the different ideas, interests, and alliances seeking to impact debates over the current Farm Bill.
HSOC 140 History of Bioethics
Offered: Fall 2008
Walls T 3-6
**THIS COURSE HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED, PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME SLOT**
This course is an introduction to the historical development of medical ethics and to the birth of bioethics in the twentieth-century United States. We will examine how and why medical ethical issues arose in American society at this time. Themes will include human experimentation, organ donation, the rise of medical technology, and euthanasia. Finally, this course will examine the contention that the current discipline of bioethics is a purely American phenomenon that has been exported to Great Britain, Canada, and Continental Europe.
HSOC 145 Comparative Medicine
Cross-listed as HIST 146 & FOLK 145
Offered: Fall 2008
Feierman MW 12-1 + rec
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 2008
Wahlert TR 4:30-6
HSOC 148 (Spring) Medicine in Literature and Film, 1850-present
Cross-listed as ENGL 085, BCHE 085, CINE 085
Offered: Spring 2008
Wahlert TR 4:30-6
What is it like to live with a serious illness? How have laypersons? cultural understandings of sickness and health changed over time? And how do historical images, literary accounts, and cinematic representations of doctors, nurses, and sick people reveal and affect conventional assumptions about disease and medical authority? This course offers a comprehensive study of significant changes and continuities in the history of 19th- and 20th-century medicine, alongside works of literature and film 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 hysteria, cancer, syphilis, homosexuality, and madness. As a transhistorical study of Western medicine from the innovations of Paris Medicine through the present, we will be concerned with the power of literary and cinematic 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.
This semester, we will read works of literature by authors such as Anton Chekhov, Emily Dickinson, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, Sylvia Plath, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Additionally, we will watch numerous films including Akira Kurosawa's IKIRU, Alfred Hitchcock's MARNIE, Derek Jarman's BLUE, Todd Haynes's SAFE and SUPERSTAR, Jonathan Glazer's BIRTH, and documentarian Frederick Wiseman's TITICUT FOLLIES and HOSPITAL. In conjunction with these literary and cinematic texts, we will study contemporaneous medical topics, such as the history of psychoanalysis, advancements in anesthesia, the elevation of the professional surgeon, the pathology of sexual deviances, the impact of the AIDS/HIV pandemic, and the clinical gaze. Assignments will include two short papers, a midterm, and a final exam.
SYLLABUS
HSOC 150 American Health Policy
Cross-listed as SOCI 152
Offered: Spring 2008
Linker MWF 10-11
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
STSC 179 Down to Earth: An introduction to environmental history
Cross-listed as HSOC 179, HIST 320, ENVS 179
Offered: Spring 2008
Greene TR 3:00-4:30
Environmental history studies the interactions between humans and the natural world. In this kind of study, mosquitoes and rain are actors in history as well as humans and their impact. This course explores these interactions through case studies and topics nationally and globally, such as energy, disease, human migration and settlement, animals, technological changes, urban and suburban development, conservation and politics. This course is geared toward students who want to think about how history happens, in different places and over time.
HSOC 204 Health and Healing in Early America
Cross-listed as HIST 203
Offered: Spring 2008
Paugh M 2-5
In this course we will examine the social and cultural history of health and healing in early America. We will pay special attention to how race, class, and gender shaped early American experiences of and attitudes toward health and healing. Among the topics we will address will be the way that early Americans defined health and illness and understood the etiology of disease; the pluralistic nature of medical care in early America and the range of health care providers available to early American patients, including midwives, folk healers, physicians, and surgeons; the intersection of race and medicine on plantations in the American South; popular and elite attitudes toward inoculation and dissection; and the rise of the American hospital system.
HSOC 230 Fundamentals of Epidemiology
Offered: Spring 2008
Kanetsky MW 3:30-5
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.
One weekly session is used for didactic lessons, while the other is used either as “lab” to discuss homework or to expose students to practical applications of epidemiological methods through guest lectures. _Epidemiology for Public Health Practice_ by Friis and Sellers, in addition to other materials available on Blackboard, provide the backbone for the didactic lesions. Homework sets are due throughout the semester, and students willsit for a midterm and final examination. Two group projects (a presentation and paper) are assigned for the end of semester, both focusing on the epidemiology of a specific health outcome.
HSOC 238 Medical Anthropology
Cross-listed as ANTH 238 Medical Anthropology
Offered: Fall 2008
Prof. Barg MW 2-3 + recitation
formerly HSOC 306 - please note changed course number
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 259 Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Holism, Humanism and Health
Cross-listed as STSC 259
Offered: Spring 2008
Mackenzie TR 12-1:30
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.
STSC 260 Cyberculture
Cross-listed as HSOC 213, SOCI 260
Offered: Spring 2008
Ensmenger T 1:30-4:30
Free speech, free software, MOOS, MUDs, anime and cyberpunk. All of these are elements of a broad set of social, technical and political phenomena generally associated with the emergence of a nascent "cyberculture.'' In this seminar we explore the ways in which
recent developments in information technology -- the computer and the Internet in particular -- relate to changing contemporary notions of community, identity, property, and gender. By looking at an eclectic collection of popular and scholarly resources, including film, fiction and the World Wide Web, we will situate the development of
"cyberculture'' into the larger history of the complex relationship between technology and Western society.
NOTE: DO NOT CONFUSE THIS COURSE WITH HSOC 260 SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
HSOC 260 Social Determinants of Health
Cross-listed as SOCI 259
Offered: Spring 2008
Aronowitz TR 12-1:30
Over the last century, we have witnessed dramatic historical change in population health, e.g. rising numbers of obese Americans and dramatic declines in death from stomach cancer. There has also been highly visible social patterning of health and disease, such as socio-economic disparities in AIDS, substance abuse, and asthma in the U.S. today or the association of breast cancer with affluence around the world. This course will explore the way researchers and others in past and present have tried to make sense of these patterns and do something about them.
The course is historical and sociological. We will examine evidence and theories about how poverty, affluence, and other social factors influence health AND we will examine how social and historical forces shape the ways in which health and disease are understood. In examining our current obesity "epidemic," for example, we wil not only consider evidence about the causal nature of market forces and the built environment, but ask how obesity was defined historically and why (besides the fact that we are heavier) obesity has become such a visible and important medical and public health issue in the U.S. today. We will study the important findings, methods and approaches in the developing field of population health.
The first half of the course is organized historically and the second half topically by health issues (e.g. cancer cluster, Russian mortality crisis). Readings are eclectic, for example excerpts from Emile Durkheim's 1897 book on suicide and medical articles on the decline in cardiovascular mortality in the U.S. There will be guest lecturers who are experts in particular health problems or involved in clinical and policy responses to those problems. There will be both lecture and discussion, several short (1-2 pp) papers based on readings, and a final research paper and class presentation.
NOTE: DO NOT CONFUSE THIS COURSE WITH STSC 260 - CYBERCULTURE
HSOC 275 Medical Sociology
Cross-listed as SOCI 275
Offered: Fall 2008
Schnittker MWF 10-11
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 2008
Wolfe, Audra T 1:30-4:30
***NEW COURSE***
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.
STSC 312 Weapons of Mass Destruction
Cross-listed as HSOC 312
Offered: Spring 2008
Lindee T 1:30-4:30
In this course we explore the history of the technical development, use, and political and cultural interpretation of those weapons conventionally identified as weapons of mass destruction, that is, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. We explore why these particular forms of military destruction have been understood to raise novel problems of international law and ethics. We consider the weapons systems as a global phenomenon with global effects, and we interpret them as not only material and technical objects, but
also as symbolic systems that acquire meaning in a wide range of settings, from
government reports, to scientific papers, to the films and novels of popular culture.
WMD, as defined here, are entirely the result of scientific research in the industrialized world. Some forms of biological and chemical warfare are very old—bodies infected with plague and other diseases were catapulted into besieged cities from about 1300—but modern WMD are produced as a result of laboratory research, by persons with formal training in the scientific method, and with funding from national military establishments. They are profound intellectual achievements, reflecting the specialized techniques of modern science, an enterprise commonly understood to embody all that is most rational
and most beneficent in human intellectual life. They have also been interpreted, from many different perspectives, as unusually brutal. It is the fusion of reason and brutality, of rationality and violence, as it plays out in the history of weapons of mass destruction, that will interest us as we consider these weapons this semester.
Syllabus
HSOC 321 Health in Urban Communities
Cross-listed as ANTH 312, URBS 312
Offered: Fall 2008
F. Johnston W 2-5
This course will introduce students to anthropological approaches to health and to theories of participatory action research. This combined theoretical perspective will then be put into practice using West Philadelphia community schools as a case study. Students will become involved in design and implementation of health-related projects at an urban elementary or middle school. As one of the course requirements, students will be expected to produce a detailed research proposal for future implementation.
HSOC 335 Healthy Schools: Community-based participatory research, planning and action
Cross-listed as PSCI 335
Offered: Spring 2008
Summers T 1:30-4:30 pm
ABCS course
This academically based community service and “Ideas in Action” seminar will develop a pilot program to test the efficacy of using service-learning teams of undergraduates and graduate students to facilitate the development of School Health Councils (SHCs), whose members will include members of the administration, staff, teachers, students, parents and community members in two West Philadelphia elementary schools. These Councils will use the School Health Index, developed by the Center for Disease Control, to assess the school health environment on such issues as: nutrition (quality and participation in school meals and other sources of food in school); physical education and fitness; the physical environment (bathrooms, cafeterias, hallways, classrooms, playgrounds, gyms); tobacco use prevention; asthma; and violence prevention (anti-bullying programs; after school programs). The goal of this assessment is to develop a realistic and meaningful school health implementation plan and ongoing action projects to put this plan into practice.
Syllabus
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 2008
Kagan W 4-7
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
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.
Syllabus
HSOC 339 "Ageing, Beauty, and Sexuality": Psychological Gerontology in the 21st Century
Cross-listed as NURS 339, GSOC 339
Offered: Spring 2008
Kagan T 4-7
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
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.
Syllabus
HSOC 341 Race, Class, Gender and the History of American Health Care, 1865-present
Cross-listed as NURS 318, GSOC 318
Offered: Fall 2008
Fairman W 2-5
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
This multidisciplinary course surveys the history of American health care through the multiple perspectives of race, gender, and class, and grounds the discussions in contemporary health issues. It emphasizes the links between the past and present, using not only primary documents but materials from disciplines such as literature, art, sociology, and feminist studies that relate both closely and tangentially to the health professions and health care issues. Discussions will surround gender, class-based, ethnic, and racial ideas about the construction of disease, health and illness; the development of health care institutions; the interplay between religion and science; the experiences of patients and providers; and the response to disasters and epidemics.
Skills for document analysis and critique are built into the course as is the contextual foundation for understanding the history of health care.
HSOC 351 The History of the Doctor-Patient Relationship
Offered: Spring 2008
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 359 Nutritional Anthropology
Cross-listed as ANTH 359
Offered: Spring 2008
Johnston W 2-5
ABCS course
Human nutrition and nutritional status within context of anthropology, health, and disease. Particular emphasis on nutritional problems and the development of strategies to describe, analyze, and solve them. Students will participate in the Urban Nutrition Initiative, an academically based community service project in local area schools.
Syllabus
STSC 378 Going Digital
Offered: Fall 2008
Mills R 3-6
***NEW COURSE***
A “digital revolution” in the twentieth century is said to have ushered in an era of new media and rapid globalization, with changes in manufacture, communication, and subjectivity. How are changes at the level of signalsrelated to changes in politics and culture? This course surveys characterizations of “the analog” and “the digital” in the literatures of engineering, history of technology, and media studies. We will examine archival and published sources, as well as artifacts, to compare the analog and digital
forms of several technologies, including film, the telephone, sound recording and computing.
HSOC 404 Urban Environment: West Philadelphia
Cross-listed as ENVS 404
Offered: Fall 2008
Pepino TR 10:30-12
This course fulfills the Capstone Research Requirement for HSOC and STSC majors.
Benjamin Franklin Seminar
ABCS course
CWIC-affiliated course
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 407 Urban Environments: Prevention of Tobacco Smoking in Adolescents
Cross-listed as ENVS 407
Offered: Spring 2008
Pepino TR 10:30-12
Capstone Course
ABCS Course
Cigarette smoking is a major public health problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Control reports that more than 80% of current adult tobacco users started smoking before age 18. The National Youth Tobacco Survey indicated that 12.8% of middle school students and 34.8% of high school students in their study used some form of tobacco products.
In ENVS 407, Penn undergraduates learn about the short and long term physiological consequences of smoking, social influences and peer norms regarding tobacco use, the effectiveness of cessation programs, tobacco advocacy and the impact of the tobacco settlement. Penn students will collaborate with teachers in West Philadelphia to prepare and deliver lessons to middle school students. The undergraduates will survey and evaluate middle school and Penn student smoking. One of the course goals is to raise awareness of the middle school children to prevent addiction to tobacco smoke during adolescence. Collaboration with the middle schools gives Penn students the opportunity to apply their study of the prevention of tobacco smoking to real world situations.
HSOC 408 Urban Asthma Epidemic
Cross-listed as ENVS 408
Offered: Fall 2008
Pepino TR 1:30-3
This course fulfills the Capstone Research Requirement for HSOC and STSC majors.
CWIC-affiliated course
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 410 Health Policy in South Asia
Cross-listed as SAST 385/SAST 685
Offered: Fall 2008
Staff MW 3:30-5:00
Health policy in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives) is at a critical crossroads, with both changing disease & demographic patterns. The private sector competes for patients, as the public sector faces reduced funding. The course examines the process of health care planning & policy in the South Asian countries since the 1950s. The role of central, state & local government & non-governmental agencies, as well as of international organizations in planning for health care will be analyzed. Topics will include medical services & facilities, preventive & public health, training of health care professionals, & public/private financing of health care. Specialized needs of women, children, mentally ill, disabled, & aged will be considered. The influence of political, economic, & socio-cultural aspects of these societies on health care services will be identified.
HSOC 412 Traditional Medicine in South Asia
Cross-listed as SAST 387
Offered: Spring 2008
Sheehan MW 3:30-5
Capstone Course
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 Research Seminar
Offered: Spring 2008
Cowan W 5-8
Capstone Course
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 fulfills the Capstone research requirement for students writing a senior thesis.
STSC 422 Politics and U.S. Science Policy
Offered: Fall 2008
Alpert TR 3-4:30
NEW!!
This course fulfills the Capstone Research Requirement for HSOC and STSC majors.
This capstone seminar provides an overview of the federal science policymaking process in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the basics of how the government works. Possible topics: science policy and the Presidency, science policy and Congress, the role of interest groups, conflicts of interest, specific case studies (including the Human Genome Project, the FDA and AIDS drugs, and the politics of organ transplants), the role of the press/media in public perceptions of science policy. Students will carry out an exercise in budget allocation (including conducting budget hearings) based on actual budget figures for various institutes within the National Institutes of Health, and an exercise in peer review, utilizing actual National Science Foundation projects. Each student will chose a relevant topic on which to write their research paper.
HSOC 430 Disease and Society
Offered: Fall 2008
Aronowitz R 1:30-4:30
This course fulfills the Capstone Research Requirement for HSOC and STSC majors.
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.
HSOC 437 Cultural Models and Health
Cross-listed as ANTH 437, SOCI 437
Offered: Spring 2008
Barg M 2-5
Capstone Course
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 438 Development and Global Health
Offered: Fall 2008
Berson T 3-6
***NEW COURSE***
The course fulfills the Capstone Research Requirement for HSOC and STSC majors.
International development" encompasses everything from growing rice to delivering babies to running currency markets. High-level public policy, seemingly remote from the day-to-day stuff of life and death, has a profound impact on the basic living conditions of a majority of the world's people. The aim in this course is to understand how development policy--for example, the outcome of World Trade Organization negotiations--affects the health of poor people. We look at how the practice of international development has been shaped, over the past sixty years and more, by political interests with no straightforward bearing on the kinds of health outcomes we might assume to be the aims of development. We relate current and emerging trends in development--microfinance, climate justice--to the history of policy agendas at the national and international level. By the course's end, students will have a critical, historically informed perspective on the practice of international development.
Each student will develop an original research paper over the course of the term and have the chance to present research in progress to the group.
HSOC 498 Senior Thesis
Offered: Spring 2008
Staff
HSOC 499 Independent Study
Offered: Spring 2008
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 Permission Form
HSSC 533 Folk and Alternative Health Systems
Cross-listed as FOLK 533, RELS 505
Offered: Spring 2008
Hufford M 1-4
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.
