Queering the History of Health

This course identifies the key conceptual and methodological terrain pertinent to the historical development of the concepts of "health" "disease," and "ability." We will use an intersectional lens to trace various contingencies that produce a set of false binaries, including healthy, slender, responsible self v. the medically diseased, disabled, fat, and irresponsible other. Historically, these binaries have created and maintained social, political, and cultural inequalities and have been used as a powerful ideological weapon against queer and trans people of color, people with disabilities, people living with HIV/AIDS, fat people, and other people who do not/cannot embody normative race, gender, sexuality, and ability. However, as we will see, these inequalities, somehow counterintuitively, also enable a predisposition for a resistance, world-making, and political agency. While the course serves as an introduction to the key terms that surround the construction of "health" from the establishment of modern nation-states in the 19th century to the present, it is structured as a history of the present-it assesses how different notions pertinent to "health" shape our daily lives and inform the choices we make still today(?). Waitlists controlled by Department; priority given to WGSS majors.
Course Attributes: BU BA; AS SSC; FA SSC; AR SSC; AS SC; EN S

Queering the History of Health

WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES 3563

Section 01