The AIDS Epidemic: Inequalities, Ethnography, and Ethics

In the year 2000, HIV became the world's leading infectious cause of adult death. In the next 10 years, AIDS killed more people than all wars of the 20th century combined. As the global epidemic rages on, our greatest enemy in combating HIV/AIDS is not knowledge or resources but rather global inequalities and the conceptual frameworks with which we understand health, human interaction, and sexuality. This course emphasizes the ethnographic approach for the cultural analysis of responses to HIV/AIDS. Students will explore the relationships among local communities, wider historical and economic processes, and theoretical approaches to disease, the body, ethnicity/race, gender, sexuality, risk, addiction, power, and culture. Other topics covered include the cultural construction of AIDS and risk, government responses to HIV/AIDS, origin and transmission debates, ethics and responsibilities, drug testing and marketing, the making of the AIDS industry and "risk" categories, prevention and education strategies, interactions between biomedicine and alternative healing systems, and medical advances and hopes.
Course Attributes: EN S; BU IS; AS LCD; AS SSC; AS SD I; FA SSC; AR SSC; AS SC

The AIDS Epidemic: Inequalities, Ethnography, and Ethics

WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES 4134

Section 01