HSOC4427 - Technology and Medicine in Modern America

Medicine as it exists in the United States today is profoundly technological. Many folks residing in the U.S. regard it as perfectly normal for clinicians to examine patients with instruments, for specialists to expose people’s bodies to many different machines, and for those machines to produce data that is mechanically/electronically processed, interpreted and stored. People are billed technologically, prompted to attend appointments technologically, and buy everyday consumer technologies to protect, diagnose, or improve our health. (Consider, for example, air-purifiers, heart rate monitors, pregnancy testing kits, blood-sugar monitoring tests, and thermometers.) Yet even at the beginning of the twentieth century, devices such as these were scarce and infrequently used by American physicians and medical consumers alike. Over the course of this semester, we examine how “technology” came to medicine’s center-stage in the U.S., and what impact this change has had on medical practice, institutions, and consumers alike.
Technology & Medicine in Modern America fulfills the Capstone research requirement for the HSOC major. Students develop and execute original research projects connected to our course questions and themes. Student topics can be wildly diverse and reflect their own interests and concentration: reproductive technologies, technology & disability, pharma & biotech, public health tech, medicalized consumers/”everyday” med tech, technology & enhancement, med tech & the military, and so on. By the end of the course, students will have honed their skills in primary and secondary source research and in constructing an academic argument and paper.
Assignments. Students formulate a research question; appropriately situate their question within the literature of a core STSC/HSOC discipline (anthropology, sociology, or history); and build an argument (an answer to their research question) based on their analysis of primary sources. In addition, students continue to develop skills in critical analysis through weekly reading assignments and discussions. Requirements therefore include: weekly readings and participation in class discussions; sequenced research assignments; first draft peer review workshop; and a final 20+page original research paper and presentation.
Course Format. The course fosters a collaborative atmosphere in which students complete an original research paper through critical reading and step-wise assignments that culminate in a final project. Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:45-3:15pm EST = class discussion, about shared texts or about research or writing. Class time will occasionally be reserved for asynchronous time to work on research assignments. All readings and reading notes are due at 1:45pm in advance of our class sessions. All research assignments are due by midnight (except peer review, which is due by class). Expect about 4 hours of homework per week, give or take, which includes a combination of reading, research, and writing.