Communications 490 Spring 2002

CULTURAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

Thursdays 2-5, 336 Gregory Hall

Instructor: Paula A. Treichler (ptreich@uiuc.edu)

Seminar Description. The cultural analysis of science and medicine is among the richest and most productive research areas of the last decade.  In this seminar we will examine studies that are of theoretical, social, historical, and/or methodological interest.  These address such topics as the U.S. health care system, scientific and medical professionalization and conduct, cancer, HIV/AIDS, cultural variation in health and disease, reproductive technologies, genetic medicine, sexuality, clinical drug trials, and imaging technologies.  Generally speaking, these studies can be called "cultural" because they focus, to a significant extent, on the concrete languages, texts, and discourses of the issues they are investigating, thus treating as interesting and problematic the production, representation, interpretation, and circulation of scientific and medical texts even while pointing to the social contexts of their production.  We can use these works, then, to learn something about the function and range of scientific and medical discourses, the complexity of current debates within science and medicine and the disciplines that study them, and about the nature and explanatory power of a number of central concepts in cultural studies and science studies (including ideology, hegemony, identity, body, language, code, culture, theory, practice, the media, and representation).

Limit:          10 students.

Readings. Readings have been selected to represent a range of research studies, theoretical approaches, and social and scientific interventions.  Required and recommended readings will be drawn from the following list: Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease since 1880; Lisa Cartwright, Screening the Body; Cathy Cohen, Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics; Steven Epstein, Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge; Cindy Patton, The Invention of AIDS in Africa; Bob Flanagan, special issue of RE/Search; Michel Foucault, Birth of the Clinic; Alan Petersen and Robin Bunton, eds., Foucault: Health and Science; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper; John Grayson, Zero Patience; Donna Haraway, Primate Visions (or Modest Witness); Gerald Geison, The Private Science of Louis Pasteur; David Hess, Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction; Terri Kapsalis, Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum; Daniel Kevies, The Baltimore Case; John LeCarre, The Constant Gardener; Betty MacDonald, The Plague and I; Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, Our Cancer Year; Susan Reverby, ed., Tuskegee's Truths: A Documentary History; Richard Powers, The Goldbug Variations; Jackie Stacey, Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer; Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment; Paula Treichier, How To Have Theory in an Epidemic: Cultural chronicles of AIDS; Paula Treichler et al eds.  The Visible Woman: Imaging Technology, Science, and Gender.  A modest number of journal articles will supplement the book list.

Requirements.  Seminar participants have five general responsibilities: (1) as part of a small group of students, lead seminar sessions on the assigned readings twice during the semester; (2) complete an individual research paper, project, or case study on any topic that falls broadly within the seminar's scope; (3) present your project to the seminar near the end of the semester; (4) carry out a couple of very short research assignments in preparation for specific seminar activities; and (5) prepare for, participate in, and otherwise contribute toward a lively and collaborative intellectual experience.  Note: anyone sitting in on the seminar but not enrolled for credit is expected to fulfill requirements (1), (4), and (5).

List of required readings:

Brizer, David 1994.  Health Care for Beginners.  Writers and Readers Publishing [PO Box 461, Village Station, New York NY 10014].  ISBN 0-86316-170-7

*Epstein, Steven. 1996.  Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge.  Berkeley: University of California Press.  ISBN 0-520-20233-3

Geison, Gerald. 1995.  The Private Science of Louis Pasteur.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.  ISBN 0-691-01552-X

Gilbert, Sandra. 1997.  Wrongful Death: A Memoir.  New York: Norton. [paper: revised edition of earlier book] ISBN 0-393-31516-9

Hess, David J. 1997.  Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction.  New York: New York University Press.  ISBN 0-8147-3564-9

Kapsalis, Terri. 1997.  Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum.  Durham: Duke University Press.  ISBN 0-8223-1921-7

LeCarre, John. 2001.  The Constant Gardener.

Michaels, Eric. 1997.  Unbecoming.  Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2014-2.

Murphy, Robert F. 1990.  The Body Silent.  New York: Norton.  ISBN 0-393-30702-6

Powers, Richard.  The Gold Bug Variations

Stacey, Jackie. 1997.  Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer.  New York: Routledge.  ISBN 0415-14960­6  

*Steingraber, Sandra. 1997.  Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment.  New York: Addison-Wesley.  ISBN 0-20148303-3

Treichler, Paula, Lisa Cartwright, and Constance Penley, eds. 1998.  The Visible Woman: imaging Technology, Science, and Gender.  New York: NYU Press.  ISBN 0-8147-1568-0

Tuskegee 2? AIDS, Africa, and US 1997.  ACAS Briefing Packet.  Champaign: Association of Concerned African Scholars, November 27.

Bob Flanagan RIE/Search (on order)

Seminar limited to 10.