STS 3111

Social Studies of Medicine

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

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.

Enrollment Priority Enrollment limited to: seniors, juniors, and sophomores.

Distribution Requirements (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SSC-AS), (SCT-IL)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2024SP, 2021FA, 2020FA, 2019FA

View Enrollment Information