Courses :: CULS C701 Topic: Race, Gender, and Science in American Society

This course examines the role of science and medicine in the construction(s) of ?race,?
historically and in the present. Students will interrogate the development of scientific
authority over American race relations as well as challenges to racial science, paying
particular attention to the intersection of race with other categories of human
difference, such as gender and sexuality. The readings will focus primarily on the
United States, in order to examine in depth the specific historical contexts and
changing cultural politics at play in scientific understandings of racial difference.
Additional themes include: gender norms and racial thought; the production of scientific
knowledge; biological determinism and raced/gendered bodies; health disparities; the
racial coding of disease; and the implications of recent trends in genetic science.