Department electives are an important requirement of the HSOC major program. In Path@Penn, department electives have the "AHSM" course attribute tag. HSOC majors take three department electives. Department electives are courses that are taught by HSSC faculty and instructors and also include any additional core courses that students choose to take. (For example, a student might take both a medical sociology and a medical anthropology course and apply one of these to their core requirement and the other could count as a department elective.)

  • to acquire a foundation in the department's approach and methodology from its faculty
  • to acquire the critical perspectives important for understanding of the social context of health and medicine.

The courses on the list below may be used to fulfill this requirement.  Students may not petition courses for this requirement.
The following cannot be used to fulfill this requirement:

  • Study abroad courses
  • Non-College courses 
  • Courses that do NOT have the "AHSM" course attribute tag 

Select 3 cu from the following: 

Please note, this list is not exhaustive and may change as new instructors and new courses are added. Check the "AHSM" course attribute list on Path@Penn, too. If you ever have any doubts or questions about whether something counts as a department elective, always check with the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies to be sure. 

HSOC Department Electives

HSOC 0311 - Addiction

HSOC 0313 - Cane and Able

HSOC 0343 - Why Medical Interventions Work (STSC 0343)

HSOC 0361 - Missionaries and Medical Partners

HSOC 0387 - Epidemics in History

HSOC 0400 - Medicine in History

HSOC 0480 - Health and Societies

HSOC 0490 - Comparative Medicine (STSC 0490)

HSOC 1222 - Medical Sociology (SOCI 1110)

HSOC 1312 - Mental Illness (SOCI 1111)

HSOC 1330 - Bioethics

HSOC 1382 - Medical Anthropology (ANTH 1238)

HSOC 1401 - The People's Health

HSOC 1411 - American Health Policy

HSOC 2198 - Race, Science and Globalization (STSC 2198)

HSOC 2211 - Sex, Sexuality, and Sexual Science in South Asia (SAST 2211)

HSOC 2213 - Herbs and Humors: Medieval and Early Modern Pharmacology

HSOC 2227 - Trauma and Healing (STSC 2227)

HSOC 2303 - Fundamentals of Epidemiology

HSOC 2304 - Insect Epidemiology

HSOC 2317 - Slavery and Disease in Americas (STSC 2317)

HSOC 2347 - Autism, Past and Present

HSOC 2401 - Social Determinants of Health

HSOC 2418 - Engineering Cultures

HSOC 2433 - Sustainability and Public Health

HSOC 2457 - History of Bioethics

HSOC 2483 - Health, Politics and Social Movements

HSOC 2511 - Foundations of Public Health

HSOC 2514 - Environments and Public Health

HSOC 2518 - Devices, Pills, People

HSOC 2523 - Technology and Medicine in Modern America

HSOC 2526 - Intro to Complementary and Alterative Medicine

HSOC 2537 - Gender and Health

HSOC 2563 - Doing Good?

HSOC 2583 - Law and Medicine

HSOC 2707 - Data and Death (STSC 2707)

HSOC 3028 - Normal People (STSC 3028)

HSOC 3185 - Toxicity (STSC 3216)

HSOC 3279 - Nutritional Modernities (STSC3279)

HSOC 3299 - CSI Global: Forensic Medicine (STSC 3299)

HSOC 3313 - Reproductive Medicine

HSOC 3327 - Birth Culture and Medical Technology

HSOC 3356 - The Human Subject

HSOC 3383 - Bioethics and National Security (STSC 3509)

HSOC 3447 - Disabilities and Epidemics

HSOC 3488 - Issues in Global Health

HSOC 3524 - Medical Mestizaje (LALS 3524)

HSOC 3644 - Minds, Bodies, and Machines (STSC 3644)

HSOC 3889 - Trans Method (STSC 3889)

 

HSOC 4094 - Science and Disability (STSC 4094)

HSOC 4114 - Sport Science, Medicine and Technology (STSC 4114)

HSOC 4288 - Invisible Labor in the Human Sciences (STSC 4288)

HSOC 4303 - Disease and Society

HSOC 4324 - Medical Activism and the Politics of Health

HSOC 4327 - Seeking Health

HSOC 4324 - Medical Activism

HSOC 4333 - Bodies, Gender, Science and Medicine

HSOC 4364 - Biopiracy (STSC 4364)

HSOC 4388 - Objects of Global Health

HSOC 4427 - Technology and Medicine (STSC 4427)

HSOC 4437 - Remembering Epidemics

HSOC 4528 - Race and Medicine in America

HSOC 4545 - Military Medicine and Technology (STSC 4545)

HSOC 4588 - Environments and Health

HSOC 4595 - Defining Disability

 

STSC 0100 - Emergence of Modern Science (HSOC 0100)

STSC 0283 - Medicine, Magic Miracles

STSC 0600 - Technology and Society

STSC 0823 - Sport Science in the World

STSC 1101 - Science and Literature

STSC 1120 - Science, Technology and Warfare (HSOC 1120)

STSC 1151 - Modern Biology and Social Implications

STSC 1201 - Darwin's Legacies

STSC 1400 - Histories of Race and Science in Philadelphia

STSC 1600 - Information Age

STSC 1788 - Everyday Technologies

STSC 1880 - Environment and Society

STSC 1897 - Down to Earth: Introduction to Environmental History

STSC 2018 - Science in the Public

STSC 2080 - Science and Religion

STSC 2097 - Race and Gender in Global Science (HSOC 2097)

STSC 2198 - Race, Science and Globalization (HSOC 2198)

STSC 2296 - Technologies of Self and Society

STSC 2421 - Manufacturing Minds (HSOC 2421)

STSC 2607 - Cyberculture

STSC 2644 - Artificial Subjects: Golems, Homunculi, Robots, and Cyborgs

STSC 2707 - Data and Death (HSOC 2707)

STSC 2708 - Digital Democracy

STSC 2757 - Prove it!

STSC 2829 - Nature's Nation (HSOC 2829)

STSC 3087 - Science and Spectacle

STSC 3136 - Queer Science

STSC 3145 - The Universe

STSC 3167 - The Atomic Bomb

STSC 3183 - Profit and Knowledge

STSC 3216 - Toxicity in Context (HSOC 3216)

STSC 3217 - Weird Science

STSC 3288 - What is Prediction?

STSC 3299 - CSI Global: Forensic Medicine (HSOC 3299)

STSC 3334 - Hybrid Science: Nature, Health and Society in Latin America (HSOC 3334)

STSC 3509 - Bioethics and National Security (HSOC 3509)

STSC 3607 - Data Dreams

STSC 3627 - Waters, Roads and Wires

STSC 3657 - Technology and Democracy

STSC 3708 - Many lives of data

STSC 3709 - Rifle and Compass

STSC 3824 - Animals in Science, Medicine and Technology (HSOC 3824)

STSC 3923 - Animals in America 

 

Updated 03.04.2024