Course Description

What could a focus on bodies provide about everyday issues? Beyond flesh and bone, bodies are deeply social and symbolic. Bodies are used to justify stigmatization, oppression, and exclusion and differentiate "us" versus "them". They are also sites of resistance, pleasure, acceptance, and joy. This course invites you to move beyond conventional understandings of how bodies fit (and don't fit) within social worlds. Together, we will draw on sociological approaches to examine the ways bodies are represented, racialized, medicalized or considered sick, gendered, exploited, and reclaimed.