“Social and Cultural Dimensions of Epidemics” is a critical health studies course that focuses on the social and cultural ways in which epidemics of disease have been framed and understood over time. The social and cultural contexts in which epidemics emerge, through language, cultural representations, and media framing, produce meaning as much as the biological and scientific ways in which epidemics carry and transmit meaning. Beginning with our common knowledge of the ongoing epidemic of COVID-19 as a starting point, we will continue to consider various other epidemics throughout history including: the plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and drug epidemics such as those of crack cocaine and opioids. We will conclude the course by thinking more deeply about COVID-19 and about monkeypox. Our theoretical and analytic approach will be informed from disability studies, and the activist movements of harm reduction, mutual aid, and disability justice.
- Professor: Alexandra Fine