COGR 225B,
HIGR 239, PHIL 209B, SOCG 255B
Seminar in
Science Studies: Health and Disease
Spring 2007
Tuesdays, 9:30-12:20, in HSS
3027
Prof. Lisa Cartwright, Dept. of
Communication
Email: lisac@ucsd.edu
Office hours: TBA
Prof.
Steven Epstein, Dept. of Sociology
Office phone: 858-534-0489
Email:
Home page: http://sociology.ucsd.edu/~sepstein
Drop-in office hours: Tue 4:00-5:00 and Thu
11:00-12:00 in SSB 476
Description:
This course explores aspects of
contemporary health and medicine through selections from the interdisciplinary
literatures of science, technology, and health and medicine studies. We
emphasize the social and cultural aspects of health and medicine in the
contexts of the laboratory, the clinic, the workplace, and the popular sphere. Our focus is the broad array of actors
that participate in medical practice and knowledge-making—from patients,
activists, and workers (physicians, scientists, technicians) to molecules and
machines—as well as the identities and the communities of practice that shape
and are shaped by this array. Disciplines represented in the readings include
sociology, history, philosophy, and anthropology of science, technology, health
and medicine; and psychology. Social
constructionist, ethnographic, interactionist, and feminist approaches are
included in the range of methods used in the materials covered. Our goals are
to map the field of science, technology, and health and medicine studies; to
consider the fundamental issues at stake in the field; and to develop a basis
for studying, writing and teaching about health and medicine in science
studies.
There are six required books, and they
are preceded by “**” on the syllabus. The books are available for purchase at
Groundwork Books, (858) 252-9625, in the old Student Union behind
All other required readings (articles and
book chapters) will be available from e-reserves (http://reserves.ucsd.edu/). You
can access these readings from any campus computer. You can also download and
print the files from off-campus, but in order to do so you need to specify a
proxy in your web browser (see http://www-ono.ucsd.edu/documentation/squid/).
In the case of any problems accessing e-reserves, library staff are available
to help you.
Requirements:
Students taking the course for credit are
expected to submit a paper (around 25 pages in length) by Wednesday, June 13,
4:30 pm (one copy to each instructor). It may be an empirical paper that draws partially
on course materials, or it may be framed as a critical review of the
literature. All students will present a short summary of their paper topic and
present a list of references during our class meeting in Week 7. Please also note
that incompletes are heartily discouraged.
In addition, all students (including auditors) will be asked
to circulate discussion questions in advance of two class meetings during the
quarter. These questions must be emailed to all participants in the seminar by
5:00 pm on the day before class. Students will sign up for specific weeks at
the first meeting of the seminar. Students are encouraged to work together in
preparing the questions.
Accommodations:
Students wishing to request classroom or
assignment accommodations for disability-related needs: please contact Lisa or
Steve by email or in person to discuss arrangements as early as possible in the
quarter.
Schedule and assigned
readings:
Week 1 (April
3): Introduction
**Elliott,
Carl. Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream.
Note: We will not discuss this book on
April 3. Please read it
at your leisure sometime before Elliott’s visit to UCSD for the “Healthscapes
and
Week
2 (April 10): Sex, Gender, and Reproduction (Steve out of town)
Clarke,
Adele. Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and
“the Problems of Sex.”
Thompson, Charis. Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive
Technologies.
Oudshoorn,
Nelly. The Male Pill: A Biography of a Technology in the Making.
Week
3 (April 17): Race, Difference, and Disease (Lisa out of town)
**Wailoo,
Keith, and Stephen Gregory Pemberton. The Troubled Dream of Genetic
Medicine: Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle
Cell Disease.
Root,
Michael. “The Use of Race in Medicine as a Proxy for Genetic Differences.” Philosophy
of Science 70 (December 2003): 1173-1183.
Hacking,
Ian. “Why Race Still Matters.” Daedalus, Winter 2005, 102-116.
Recommended:
Reardon,
Jennifer. Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics.
Week 4
(April 24): Health Activism
**Murphy,
Michelle.
Klawiter,
Maren. “Racing for the Cure, Walking Women, and Toxic Touring: Mapping Cultures
of Action within the Bay Area Terrain of Breast Cancer.” Social Problems
46, no. 1 (February 1999): 104-126.
Epstein,
Steven. “Patient Groups and Health Movements.” In New Handbook of Science
and Technology Studies, edited by Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska,
Michael Lynch and Judy Wajcman.
Cartwright,
Lisa. “Community and the Public Body in Breast Cancer Media Activism.” In Wild
Science: Reading Feminism, Medicine and the Media, edited by Janine
Marchessault and Kim Sawchuk, 120-138.
Week
5 (May 1): Biomedical Citizenship
Rose,
Nikolas, and Carlos Novas. “Biological Citizenship.” In Global Assemblages:
Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, edited by
Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier, 439-463.
Heath,
Deborah, Rayna Rapp, and Karen-Sue Taussig. “Genetic Citizenship.” In A
Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, edited by David Nugent and Joan
Vincent, 152-167.
Ong,
Aihwa. “Making the Biopolitical Subject: Cambodian Immigrants, Refugee Medicine
and Cultural Citizenship in
Week
6 (May 8): Mind, Body, Drugs
(Class starts at 10:15 am. Steve absent)
**Lakoff,
Andrew. Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry.
**Wilson,
Elizabeth A. Psychosomatic: Feminism and
the Neurological Body.
Metzl,
Jonathan. Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs.
Week
7 (May 15)
No reading. Each
student will present a brief verbal summary of his/her paper project for the
course and receive feedback. In addition, those students who are preparing
discussant comments and questions for the “Healthscapes” workshop will have an
opportunity to try out their ideas.
Please attend the “Healthscapes
and
Week 8
(May 22): Citizenship, Difference, and Disparities
**Epstein,
Steven. Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research.
Week
9 (May 29): Evidence-Based Medicine
Worrall, John. “What Evidence in
Evidence-Based Medicine” Philosophy of Science, September 2002.
Berg,
Marc. Rationalizing Medical Work: Decision-Support Techniques and Medical
Practices.
Timmermans,
Stefan, and A. Angell. “Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Uncertainty, and
Learning to Doctor.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 42, no. 4
(December 2001): 342-359.
Cambrosio,
Alberto, Peter Keating, Thomas Schlich, and George Weisz. “Regulatory
Objectivity and the Generation and Management of Evidence in Medicine.” Social
Science & Medicine 63 (2006): 189-199.
Week
10 (June 5): The Molecular Remaking of Disease
Landecker, Hannah. Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies.
Martin, Paul A. “Genes as Drugs: The
Social Shaping of Gene Therapy and the Reconstruction of Genetic Disease,” in Sociological Perspectives on the New
Genetics, ed. Peter Conrad and Jonathan Gabe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999),
15-35.
Hedgecoe,
Adam. The Politics of Personalized Medicine: Pharmacogenetics in the Clinic.