This course explores health-related practices and experiences through the lenses of disability justice, critical race theory, and queer feminisms. Throughout the semester, we will focus on the role of power and difference in the production and embodiment of the body, health, and illness from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective. In the first two sections of the course, “Theorizing the Body” and “Difference as/and Illness,” we will build a shared set of theoretical tools and language for thinking, talking, and writing about bodies, biology, and difference. In the final section of the class, “(Global) Inequalities and Health,” we will examine how global inequalities shape our experiences and understandings of the transnational body. Drawing on a wide variety of feminist engagements, we will touch on topics including the biomedical construction of sex and gender, the racialization of diseases, structural violence and health disparities, trans health issues, eugenics, and reproduction.

Course Requirements:

20% participation; 10% presentation; 20% writing assignments; 20% midterm project; 30% final paper.