Spring 2025 Courses for Critical Disability Studies Minor

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 12:08:58 -0500
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This spring semester the Critical Disability Studies Minor is offering 8 different classes! 1 required/core class for the minor, 6 electives, and 1 additional course that is recommended. Check them out below.

IS 303: Fundamentals of Human-Computer Interaction (3)

Tera Reynolds, Lecture Tu 1-2:15, Discussion W time varies, Fine Arts 306

This course provides a survey of human factors and human computer interaction relevant to the design and use of information systems. It describes the contributions of information systems, computer science, psychology, sociology and engineering to human-computer interaction. Emphasis is placed on human factors theories, human information processing concepts, interaction design approaches and usability evaluation methods. Application areas and current research are also reviewed.

AGNG 200: Aging People, Policy, and Management

Lauren Price, Lecture TuTh 10-11:15, Sondheim 108 (Variety of online options)

Based in the life-course perspective, this course blends academic analysis of human aging in social context with more experiential learning, including exposure to literature on older adults, awareness exercises about aging in the news and talking with older adults in and out of class to debunk common myths and stereotypes regarding aging and older adults. Academic content is broadly social, in terms of understanding family and community contexts of aging, the individual experience of aging including productivity, spirituality and typical engagement, normal changes and diseases common in physical and psychological health, and a focus on how society views aging. Finally, students will be encouraged to identify themselves as aging individuals, on a trajectory toward later life.

ANCS 375: Ancient Medicine

Molly Jones-Lewis, Lecture MW 1-2:15, Sondheim 202

History of the development of medicine and medical theory in the ancient Mediterranean basin, focusing on the period spanning the 5th century BCE to 2nd century CE (Hippocratic Corpus to Galen). Course material covers how and why theories about the human body arose and vied for dominance; students will explore the ancient roots of professionalism, pharmacy, surgery, gynecology, ethics, public health, hygiene, and medical law.

PBHL 350: Public Health Ethics

Andrea Khalfoglou, Lecture TuTh 10-11:15, Sondheim 103

This course serves to introduce central concepts and key issues in public health ethics. Students will learn various proposed frameworks for analyzing ethical issues in public health, and how public health ethics differs from traditional medical ethics. Students will use a case-based approach to analyze ethical issues in public health, and practice applying the frameworks to real and fictitious cases through class discussions and written assignments.

PBHL 355: Public Health Justice and Advocacy

Andrea Khalfoglou, Lecture TuTh 11:30-12:45, Sondheim 101

Skills related to advocacy for health justice can be applied in a variety of disciplines. This course covers contextual theories, U.S. social movement insights, and legal system drawbacks that impede health justice. Students will build an understanding of government limitations in public health, detrimental legal doctrines, and the absence of human rights focus. They will also discuss inequalities and health disparities among marginalized groups. The course analyzes a holistic health justice agenda and ongoing initiatives. Students will apply their knowledge to advocate for equitable health policies, synthesizing their understanding of health justice.

PSYC 305: Children with Exceptionalities

Julie Grossman, Lecture M 4:30-7, Online

This course will examine development and behavior of various types of children with exceptionalities. Consideration is given to children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactive disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, communication, language, and speech disorders, children who have special gifts and talents, are deaf or hard of hearing, are visually impaired, and children with physical disabilities, health impairments, and multiple disabilities.

SOCY 351: Sociology of Health, Illness, and Medicine

Karon Phillips, Lecture W 7:10-9:40, Interdisciplinary Life Science 116A

This course explores how health, illness, and the field of medicine are shaped by social and cultural forces. It examines the changing role of physicians and other providers; medicine as a social institution; the nature of healthcare organizations; and the experience of health and illness. Special attention is given to the doctor-patient relationship, and factors that shape individuals' interactions with their health providers, as well as analyzing the role of persistent sociocultural inequalities across health and health care.

*ENGL 493: Minds, Madness, and Power: Rhetorics of Brain and Behavior

Drew Holladay, Lecture Tu 4:30-7, Preforming Arts 428

Philosopher Roland Barthes wrote that the brain of physicist Albert Einstein became a "mythical object" in the popular imagination as a "machine of genius" (Mythologies 68). While for Einstein the brain signifies intelligence and humanity's dominance over the secrets of nature, the brain is also a symbolic vehicle for collective fears and associated with all kinds of socially deviant behavior. In this course, we will explore from a disability studies perspective the myriad ways that brains have appeared in public discourse: as puzzle and solution, mystery and machine, the source of civilization and of madness. Our readings will consider the brain as a centerpiece of debates about human behavior and intelligence and analyze its history as a scientific and cultural icon. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to discourses of behavioral and cognitive deviance as they have materialized in the institutional practices of psychiatry. Discussions and assignments will emphasize the rhetorical-historical processes that have structured current conceptions of the brain and the work of activists who critique the logics and social effects of psychiatry and neuroscience.

*Not a part of the Critical Disability Studies track