This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology. It will expose students to archaeological methods and theory, as well as the political and social issues that emanate from the study of human pasts. In this course, students will learn how archaeologists study and interpret the past using theories and methods. The course is divided into three main sections/aspects. First, we shall examine the history of archaeology and the theories that underpin the discipline. The second aspect looks at archaeological methods and techniques, including how archaeologists prepare research designs, excavate sites, and analyze materials. Finally, we will learn about how archaeology can meaningfully confront present issues such as heritage preservation, Indigenous rights, and feminist archaeology and gender equality. Some other critical topics to be discussed include careers in archaeology and Indigenous scholarship. Students will become familiar with archaeological case studies from around the world and from different historical periods.
Visual anthropology encompasses both the study of visual culture and the modes of producing inter- and cross-cultural visual ethnographic texts (e.g. photographs, film/video, comics/drawings, exhibits)-in other words, the cultural meanings of visual expressions and the visual recording of cultural practices. In this course, we will explore historical approaches to analyzing visual and material culture and ethical and philosophical debates about power, the representation of cultural difference and the ethnographic gaze. In addition to exploring the legacies of visual anthropology, we analyze the techniques, visual rhetoric, and narrative strategies used to produce a range of images of Africa and Africans in historical and contemporary media. We will also experiment with video, photography, and drawing in our own ethnographic projects.
Biology 339 Critical Topics in Ecology and Conservation
Anthropogenic changes to the world's ecosystems continue to have large, and often context dependent, effects on the abundance, distribution and interactions of species. In this course we will explore major conservation issues of today and examine the ecological processes underlying these issues. This course will include reading and writing about conservation issues for both scientific and general audiences, as well as discussions of primary literature and popular media around conservation. Class activities will include lectures, small and large group discussions, and other opportunities for active learning, as well as guest lectures from experts in the different conservation fields.
This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.
Econ 323-2 Economic History of the U.S. 1865-Present
The course examines the economic development of the United States since the Civil War to the present. It focuses on both long-term economic trends (like technological advance and industrialization) and the economic causes and consequences of particular events (like the Great Depression).
This course examines economic development over the long-run, with a focus on the transition to modern economic growth in the Western world. Topics include Malthusian stagnation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition, and globalization and the great divergence. Along the way, we will discuss long-run changes in inequality, technology, and labor force participation, as well as the role of institutions in economic development, and the interaction between economic conditions and political power. Much of the class will be focused around analyzing recent research on these topics. The class will also involve a writing component aimed at improving students' ability to write critically and concisely about economic topics.
Econ 355 Transportation Economics and Public Policy
The objective of this course is to provide the student with an understanding of the transportation industries in the United States and the major policy issues confronting government and the public. All modes of transportation are considered: highways, trucking, mass transit, airlines, maritime, railroads, and pipelines. The course acquaints the student with the underlying economics of transportation provision including demand, costs, the economics of regulation and regulatory reform, the pricing and quality of service, managing congestion, subsidies, competition between the various modes, and the social appraisal of projects.
English 381 Intro to Disability Studies in Literature
The field of disability studies grew out of the rights-based activism that led, in the United States, to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Yet, as disability theorists have observed, "western" literature has long been obsessed with disability as metaphor, character trait, and plot device. This course will serve as an introduction to the application of disability studies in literature. We will explore a range of questions: how do we approach the representation of disability in texts by non-disabled authors? How do we differentiate (or should we?) between disability and chronic illness, or between physical and mental disabilities? Can literary representation operate as activism? How do we parse the gap between disability as metaphor and lived experience? What does literature offer disability studies, and why should disability studies be a core method for studying literature? Readings will be divided between theoretical texts and primary sources. Students will learn to grapple with complex sociocultural and literary analysis, as well as to make space for their own primary source readings.
Gbl Hlth 320 Qualitative Research Methods in Global Health
This course is designed to provide global health students with the tools they will need in order to design, revise, conduct, and write up current and future qualitative research projects relating to global health topics. This course is experientially driven, allowing students opportunities to actually "do" research, while providing careful mentoring and engaging in in-depth discussions about ethical and methodological issues associated with qualitative approaches and with working with living humans. Students will learn methods such as: writing research proposals, research ethics, writing ethnographic field notes, doing qualitative interviews and focus groups, analyzing and writing up data.
This course draws on perspectives from anthropology and related social scientific fields to provide a comparative overview of the impact of armed conflict on public health and health care systems worldwide. Drawing primarily on examples from recent history, including conflicts in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, we will explore warfare as a crucial sociopolitical determinant of global health disparities and consider organized efforts to respond to the health impacts of mass violence. Key topics that we will consider include variations in the relationship between warfare and public health across eras and cultures; the health and mental health impacts of forced displacement, military violence, and gender-based violence; and the roles of medical humanitarianism and humanitarian psychiatry in postwar recovery processes. Through close readings of classic and contemporary social theory, ethnographic accounts, and diverse research on war, health, and postwar humanitarian interventions, this course will encourage you to build your own critical perspective on war and public health anchored in history and the complexities of real-world situations.
Gbl Hlth 323 Global Health from Policy to Practice
This seminar explores global health and development policy ethnographically, from the politics of policy-making to the impacts of policy on global health practice, and on local realities. Going beyond the intentions underlying policy, this course highlights the histories and material, political, economic, and social realities of policy and its application. Drawing on case studies of policy makers, government officials, insurance agents, health care workers, and aid recipients, the course asks: what politics inform which issues become prioritized or codified in global health and development policy, and which do not? How do philosophies and values about "good governance," "best practices," "preparedness," or "economic progress" influence the kinds of policies that are envisioned and/or implemented? How do politics affect global health or medical system governance, and to what effect on the ground? In what ways are policies adapted, adopted, innovatively engaged, or outright rejected by various global health actors, and what does this mean for the challenges that such policies aim to address? Ultimately, what is the relationship between global health politics and global health disparities?
The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]control over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.
This course examines how environmental problems reflect and exacerbate social inequality. In this course, we learn the definition of environmental (in)justice; the history of environmental justice; and also examples of environmental justice will be discussed. We will learn about environmental movements. This course has a critical perspective on health disparities in national and international levels. How environmental injustice impacts certain groups more than others and the social and political economic reasons for these injustices will be discussed in this course. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lectures, discussions, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.
Reducing chronic diseases and controlling infectious diseases are no longer just the responsibility of national governments, private health care institutions, city departments of public health, or community physicians. Cardio-vascular disease, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, obesity and diabetes, substance abuse such as opioids, tobacco and alcohol, and a range of health safety issues are now the major causes of death throughout the world. In addition, especially in low resource countries and communities, people are especially vulnerable to infectious diseases such as HIV and AIDS, Zika, Ebola, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Diarrheal diseases, as well as other viruses, parasites and antibiotic resistant bacteria. With the understanding that a healthy society is also a more economically productive society, there is an increased emphasis on reducing the burden of disease in local communities throughout the world. As a result, there is an enormous increase in the number of organizations and programs that are being implemented by the three sectors of society, public, private and civil society. This course is designed for those global health students who are seeking ways to have an impact on these global health issues by engaging in local programs and organizations which are addressing these global health challenges. Students will study global and local mechanisms and patterns of the circulation of disease, and their relation to environmental, cultural, socio-economic and political influences. Students will explore and evaluate roles and programs of global and local public, private and civil society sectors in addressing specific health issues and consider ways to improve outcomes. Each student is expected to identify a local organization or program with which they would like to volunteer during the quarter. Students will examine the programs and the geographical regions of these organizations and identify the specific opportunities and roles that are available to them as volunteers, and as professionals. Special attention will be given to understanding due diligence, accountability and mechanisms for measuring and improving impact.
The course Feminist Political Ecology examines how power, gender, and social inequalities, including race and class, shape human-environment interactions. This approach demonstrates that environmental issues and natural resource management are never neutral; rather, they are embedded within broader economic and social structures. It argues that environmental crises and resource management are not gender-neutral and analyzes how women and local communities, particularly in the Global South, struggle for livelihood sustainability, rights, and climate justice. The aim of this course is to introduce students to a critical perspective that enables them to understand environmental issues and climate change as phenomena deeply connected to power, justice, and inequality.
Gbl Hlth 390-0-23 Clinical Materialities: Artifacts of Modern Health
This course engages with the study of clinical material culture. From biometric data, filling out forms and processing paperwork, to photo IDs, even vital records like birth and death certificates, these objects have become artifacts of modern clinical life. However, as new technologies emerge, like the smartphone and phone apps, so changes the materiality of global health care. Readings, podcasts, and films trace the often taken-for-granted artifacts of the everyday in hospitals, clinics, and outpatient care spaces, to explore the sociomaterial contributions of objects to mediate and facilitate global health service delivery. Students will identify and investigate different kinds of objects - physical and digital - to expand understandings of how people produce and use devices to administer or receive treatment, in often very habituated and unnoticed ways. In addition to demonstrating the importance of looking at these features of organizational life, assignments invite students to explore the diverse ways these material practices categorize and sort, but also construct and segregate relationships with providers and recipients of health care cross-culturally.
German 250 Cultural History of Beer and Brewing from Germany to Chicago
This course will provide an overview of many different historical and practical aspects of beer and brewing in German-speaking culture, while also including the rich history of German beer making in Chicago from the 1850s to today. Beyond the history and science of beer in Germany and Chicago, we will read fictional and philosophical interpretations of beer and its cultural impact, from Martin Luther's advocation of drinking and the importance of alcohol in E.T.A. Hoffmann's work, to Friedrich Nietzsche's comparison of beer to Christianity. We will learn about the science of brewing by focusing on the different beer styles and brewing techniques used by German brew-masters and tavern owners from the Middle Ages until the present day. Both an experienced brewer from Germany and an expert on local history will be invited to class. Finally, a beer tasting of non-alcoholic malted beverages will be included as part of the curriculum, as well as a tour of a local Chicago brewery.
The course is taught in English, and all reading material is in English. This course requires no knowledge of the German language, though text will be provided in the original German for those who know German.
In this course, we examine how the Wester medical system and accompanying health practices impact people of different genders, as well as how healthcare as an institution and practice produces gender categories. Using interdisciplinary research with a focus on sociological studies, we will interrogate the social, institutional, and biological links between gender and health. We will discuss health inequalities between women, men, and trans* people from different race, ethnic, and class backgrounds, using sociological research to understand why these inequalities and forms of difference emerge and are sustained. We will explore how modern Western medicine views male and female bodies and defines their health and illnesses accordingly. In addition to smaller writing assignments, students will complete two research projects over the term in which they use different data sources (interviews and media content) to examine gendered perceptions of health, health behaviors, help-seeking behaviors, and experiences with medical institutions.
The world today is awash in predictions: economic forecasts and military scenarios, climate models and pandemic plans, political polls and betting pools, plus the ever-approaching AI utopia and/or hellscape. But how much of this is new? For millennia now, people have been debating what the future holds. They haven't always been right, of course, but even their mistakes tell us a great deal about the times they were made. Ironically, studying the future is an excellent way to study the past—and reconsider our present. In this course we will study 5,000 years of prognosticators, from Mesopotamian astrologers to today's climate scientists. Along the way we will read sci-fi novelists and religious millenarians, evolutionary theorists and Afro-futurists, eugenicists and high-tech visionaries. We will also play in-class scenario games and revisit Covid predictions to get a feel for how the future unfolded in lived time. This course may not teach you to predict the future more accurately, but it will help you understand visions of things to come. Come explore the alternative worlds of futures past.
This course introduces the main episodes and themes of modern history. Unlike other history classes, however, its focus isn't on a particular region or country, but the whole planet. That broad scope will allow us to study large-scale phenomena such as empire, industrial technology, communism, the two world wars, pandemics, and globalization. We'll particularly look at humanity's adoption of fossil fuels, and the prosperity, inequality, and environmental changes that resulted.
This interdisciplinary seminar explores several kinds of scientific ingenuity and technical know-how that have developed in the African continent across the centuries. For the era before European conquest, you'll learn about metallurgy and artistry, landscapes and foodways, architecture and urban aesthetics, and mining and trade, including trans-Saharan and Atlantic trade in people. For the era during and after European conquest, you'll study mapping and human origins research, racial and biomedical studies, transport infrastructures (roads, railways, telegraphy), algorithms and digital tech (radio, cellphones), and large and small scale development projects. We'll do a range of exercises that help you place case studies in their widest context, geographical, linguistic, and sociocultural. We'll discuss what it means to make and create useful arts, to know and manage environments, and to cultivate well-being. We'll also examine different yardsticks that have been used to measure - and often denigrate - African accomplishments. We'll likely hold at least one seminar in the Material History Lab.
Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in the Americas in order to understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times. We accomplish these objectives by watching films, telenovelas and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and using the tools and technologies of digital humanities in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.
This lecture course takes the Covid-19 pandemic as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine. We will break the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) the "unification of the globe" by infectious diseases; 2) the role of empires, industries, warfare, and revolutions in spreading biomedical cultures around the world; 3) the functions played by transnational and global health institutions in different continents; and 4) the growth of the pharmaceutical industry and the narcotics trade. Students will have a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, genocides, and police powers - to the more recent past. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
We are told constantly, "take care of yourself!" and we do our best to eat well, sleep well, and stay healthy. Our bodies are important to us. They are also important to the institutions we are a part of, including our families, our schools, our jobs, and our country. They are all invested in keeping our bodies healthy and productive. However, the array of institutions interested in the value of our bodies often have additional incentives- our health is surrounded by a hoard of controversies: - Why do some people get better medical care than others? - How should the healthcare system be organized? - How do we balance the risks of new medical treatments with the benefits? - What makes the stigma associated with disease and disability so enduring? - What happens when no diagnosis can be made? This course offers conceptual tools and perspectives for answering these controversies. To do so it surveys a variety of topics related to the intersections of health, biomedicine, culture, and society. We will analyze the cultural meanings associated with health and illness; the political debates surrounding health care, medical knowledge production, and medical decision-making; and the structure of the social institutions that comprise the health care industry. We will examine many problems with the current state of health and health care in the United States and also consider potential solutions.
The effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) permeate all aspects of life and impact world politics. What are the implications of such technological developments that now outpace diplomatic negotiations toward international regulations and norm creation? What global institutional changes are necessary to avert dangerous and unforeseen consequences of using AI, such as war and interference in democratic societies? How can we prevent unethical and unlawful uses? Will AI benefit humanity and the protection of nature? This course introduces the AI policies adopted by states, explores the implications of AI uses and their impacts in different areas of international relations riven by profound transformations: great power rivalry, challenges posed to global cooperation, provision of humanitarian assistance, achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals, and using AI in the military and warfare. We will examine the application of AI across multiple societal levels and uncover ethical, moral, and international legal implications by grappling with critical questions and answers that must become increasingly central to achieving peace and security in the contemporary world order. This course will closely examine the events, global governance, and diplomacy of AI on the world stage. We will analyze and address the challenges, obstacles, and opportunities of AI diplomacy today.
MENA 390-6-1 Art and Architecture of the Medieval Mediterranean
This course explores the medieval Mediterranean world's art, architecture, archaeology, and material culture from late antiquity to the early modern period, or between the late 4th and 16th centuries. While the Renaissance blossomed in Italy in the 1400s, in the course, we will investigate the medieval art, architectural elements, and art forms that circulated among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities around the Mediterranean until the 16th century. We will study the geographies of the Mediterranean Sea—including Italy, Spain, Egypt, North Africa, the Balkans, Anatolia, the Holy Land, and the Middle East—focusing on their rulers, kingdoms, merchants, craftsmen, pilgrims, and travelers. These figures will guide our investigation into the movement, migration, exchange, and patronage across the region while exploring the role of art and architecture in the sacred and secular lives of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. Through our study of monuments (including architecture, mosaics, and wall paintings), objects (such as ceramics, metalwork, coins, ivory, and textiles), and historical texts, we will examine the cultural and political dynamics that defined the medieval Mediterranean world.
This course is a study of moral and political problems related to biomedicine and biotechnology. In the first part of the course, we will study the ethics of the physician-patient relationship. We will consider what values ought to govern that relationship, how those values may conflict, and how such conflicts are best resolved. In the second part of the course, we will turn to some specific ethical challenges related to biotechnology, including abortion, genetic manipulation, and physician-assisted suicide. We will close the course by surveying the field of public health ethics, with particular attention to ethical issues related to global pandemic preparedness and response.
We are told constantly, "take care of yourself!" and we do our best to eat well, sleep well, and stay healthy. Our bodies are important to us. They are also important to the institutions we are a part of, including our families, our schools, our jobs, and our country. They are all invested in keeping our bodies healthy and productive. However, the array of institutions interested in the value of our bodies often have additional incentives- our health is surrounded by a hoard of controversies:
- Why do some people get better medical care than others? - How should the healthcare system be organized? - How do we balance the risks of new medical treatments with the benefits? - What makes the stigma associated with disease and disability so enduring? - What happens when no diagnosis can be made?
This course offers conceptual tools and perspectives for answering these controversies. To do so it surveys a variety of topics related to the intersections of health, biomedicine, culture, and society. We will analyze the cultural meanings associated with health and illness; the political debates surrounding health care, medical knowledge production, and medical decision-making; and the structure of the social institutions that comprise the health care industry. We will examine many problems with the current state of health and health care in the United States and also consider potential solutions.
