STS 3111

STS 3111

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

This course provides an introduction to the ways in which medical practice, the medical profession, and medical technology are embedded in society and culture. We will ask how medicine is connected to various sociocultural factors such as gender, social class, race, and administrative cultures. We will examine the rise of medical sociology as a discipline, the professionalization of medicine, and processes of medicalization and demedicalization. We will look at alternative medical practices and how they differ from and converge with the dominant medical paradigm. We will focus on the rise of medical technology in clinical practice with a special emphases on reproductive technologies. We will focus on the body as a site for medical knowledge, including the medicalization of sex differences, the effect of culture on nutrition, and eating disorders such as obesity and anorexia nervosa. We will also read various classic and contemporary texts that speak to the illness experience and the culture of surgeons, hospitals, and patients, and we will discuss various case studies in the social construction of physical and mental illness.

When Offered Spring.

Permission Note Not open to: freshmen.

Distribution Category (SBA-AS)

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Syllabi: none
  •   Regular Academic Session.  Choose one lecture and one discussion. Combined with: BSOC 3111DSOC 3111SOC 3130

  • 4 Credits Graded

  •  8948 STS 3111   LEC 001

  •  8949 STS 3111   DIS 201

  •  8950 STS 3111   DIS 202

  •  8951 STS 3111   DIS 203

  •  9415 STS 3111   DIS 204

  •  9416 STS 3111   DIS 205

  •  9417 STS 3111   DIS 206