ENST 20224 (SOSC 20224)
Studying Online Cultures:  An Introduction to Digital Ethnographic Methods (Approved HLTH Elective) 
Caterina Fugazzola
M W F 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM 
“Virtual worlds are places of imagination that encompass practices of play, performance, creativity and ritual.” – Tom Boellstorff, from Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method This course is designed to provide students in the social sciences with a review of ethnographic research methods in an online environment, exposure to major debates on virtual ethnographic research, and opportunities to try their hand at practicing fieldwork virtually. We will analyze and problematize enduring oppositions associated with ethnographic fieldwork – field/home, insider/outsider, researcher/research subject, expert/novice, ‘being there’/removal-and we will debate epistemological, ethical, and practical matters in online ethnographic research. Mirroring the complexities and opportunities of research in virtual worlds, this course will alternate between in-person and online instruction, and will combine synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for conversation, work, and play.”

SOSC 20112
Introductory Statistical Methods and Applications for the Social Sciences (Methods Course)
Yanyan Sheng
M T W TH F 9:30 AM – 11:50 AM
This course introduces and applies fundamental statistical concepts, principles, and procedures to the analysis of data in the social and behavioral sciences. Students will learn computation, interpretation, and application of commonly used descriptive and inferential statistical procedures as they relate to social and behavioral research. These include z-test, t-test, bivariate correlation and simple linear regression with an introduction to analysis of variance and multiple regression. The course emphasizes understanding normal distributions, sampling distribution, hypothesis testing, and the relationship among the various techniques covered, and will integrate the use of R as a software tool for these techniques. After the course, the student will be able to (1) differentiate, utilize and apply statistical description and inference to applied research in behavioral sciences or other disciplines, (2) understand and be able to utilize various forms of charts and plots useful for statistical description, (3) understand and utilize the concept of statistical error and sampling distribution, (4) use a statistical program for data analysis, (5) select statistical procedures appropriate for the type of data collected and the research questions hypothesized, (6) distinguish between Type I and Type II errors in statistical hypothesis testing, (7) understand the concepts of statistical power and the influence of sample size on inference, and (8) summarize and write up the results.

ARCH 28702 (GISC, ENST, CEGU 28702, SOCI 20283)
Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis (Methods Course)
Crystal Bae
M T W TH 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
This course provides an introduction and overview of how spatial thinking is translated into specific methods to handle geographic information and the statistical analysis of such information. This is not a course to learn a specific GIS software program, but the goal is to learn how to think about spatial aspects of research questions, as they pertain to how the data are collected, organized and transformed, and how these spatial aspects affect statistical methods. The focus is on research questions relevant in the social sciences, which inspires the selection of the particular methods that are covered. Examples include spatial data integration (spatial join), transformations between different spatial scales (overlay), the computation of “spatial” variables (distance, buffer, shortest path), geovisualization, visual analytics, and the assessment of spatial autocorrelation (the lack of independence among spatial variables). The methods will be illustrated by means of open source software such as QGIS and R.

ENST 20550 (SOCI 20278, SOSC 26032, MACS 20500)
Computing for the Social Sciences (Methods Course)
Jean Clipperton
M T W TH 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM
This is an applied course for social scientists with little-to-no programming experience who wish to harness growing digital and computational resources. The focus of the course is on learning the basics of programming and on generating reproducible research. Topics include coding concepts (e.g., data structures, control structures, functions, etc.), data visualization, data wrangling and cleaning, version control software, exploratory data analysis, etc. Students will leave the course with basic programming skills for the social sciences and will gain the knowledge of how to adapt and expand these skills as they are presented with new questions, methods, and data. The course is taught in R. Requirements: At least one prior course that made use of a programming language (e.g., Python, R, Stata, SPSS, etc.) in some capacity. If you are unsure or had some informal exposure, email the instructor to see if the course is a good fit.

GISC 20500 (SOCI, CEGU, ENST 20253)
Introduction to Spatial Data Science (Methods Course)
Pedro Amaral 
M W F 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM 
Spatial data science consists of a collection of concepts and methods drawn from both statistics and computer science that deal with accessing, manipulating, visualizing, exploring and reasoning about geographical data. The course introduces the types of spatial data relevant in social science inquiry and reviews a range of methods to explore these data. Topics covered include formal spatial data structures, geovisualization and visual analytics, rate smoothing, spatial autocorrelation, cluster detection and spatial data mining. An important aspect of the course is to learn and apply open source GeoDa software.

MACS 23005 
Introduction to Supervised Machine Learning for Social Scientists (Methods Course)
Fabricio Vasselai
T W TH 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM 
This course will cover the fundamentals of Supervised Machine Learning (SML). Students will be introduced to key prediction techniques like k-nearest neighbors, naive bayes classifier, regression (linear, logistic, non-linear and regularized regression models), decision trees, random forests and deep neural networks. Besides, students will learn about the importance of parameter optimization and also how to evaluate their SML model predictions using different types of cross-validation (Monte Carlo, leave-k-out, block) and with different metrics for classification problems (e.g. precision, recall, confusion matrices) or regression problems (e.g. Root-Mean Squared Error, Pearson or Spearman’s correlation). The course ends with a brief and conceptual discussion of bias, fairness and trustworthiness in SML and what is the role of interpretable methods, so that students can know where to go next to learn the state-of-the-art discussions on SML. Note that the main focus of the course will be on having the students learn the critical concepts and develop deep intuitions about the techniques. To achieve that, we will cover some of the crucial mathematical foundations, but students will also have the chance to test and play with many techniques using the R programming language (which is assumed to be known already).

HLTH 17000
Introduction to Health and Society
Eugene Raikhel
Disability, experiences of illness, categories of disorder, ideals of well-being, and models of medical intervention can all vary between cultural settings and across history. Rapid changes in medicine and biotechnology create new understandings and expectations about illness, health, and well-being. At the same time, inequalities in access to care and in health outcomes across populations, in the United States and globally, have become important to conversations in policy and practice alike. This course introduces students introduces students to the social, political, and economic processes that shape individual and population health, as well as to a range of concepts and methods which social scientists use to study these processes. A requirement for students undertaking the “Health and Society” minor, the class will also serve as an introduction to the faculty researching and teaching on issues of health and society in the Social Sciences Division and beyond.

HLTH 22107 (GNSE 20164)
Queer Reproduction
Paula Martin
What makes reproduction queer, and how do queers reproduce? In some senses, more people than ever before have access to reproductive technologies and to family building resources. People of all genders and sexualities utilize tools to combat infertility such as in vitro fertilization, gamete donation, surrogacy, and adoption, sometimes reproducing the normative family form and other times expanding it. Kinship categories, from “diblings” (donor siblings) to house mothers, can be artifacts both of culture and of science, and reflect ways of understanding what constitutes a family and what relationships become considered family. This course asks after the many mechanisms which can be taken to foster or hinder queer reproduction, thinking through the tools for managing social and biological infertility alongside cultural anxieties about queer reproduction more broadly, as enacted through bans on queer representation in classrooms and other policies. We will consider how specific technologies emerge and are utilized among groups who identity as queer and those who do not, ask after the legacy of queerness and its association with non-procreative forms of intimacy, and map the ways that the figure of the child is always bound up with some vision of the future (of the family, the nation, or humanity itself).

ANTH 21014 (HLTH 21014)
Toxic Chicago 
Reed McConnell
In this field trip-rich course, students will explore Chicago’s many toxic environments, focusing in particular on fallout of the city’s industrial past and on the racialized, unequal distribution of toxic exposure. In this course, we will ask: What is unique (and not unique) about the way that Chicago’s landscape has been shaped by environmental racism? What happens when we think about toxicity—and “environment”—on different temporal and geographical scales, from molecule to neighborhood to international corporation, from a day in the life to deep time, and how does this trouble commonsensical ideas about cause and effect, responsibility and liability? How does the incomplete knowability of toxic threat trouble ideas about the givenness of nature, and shift challenges for environmental justice activists? We will visit the former Union Stockyard slaughterhouses, the Chicago River Museum, Altgeld Gardens, Steelworkers Park, a wastewater treatment plant, and a repurposed industrial warehouse, among other sites. Readings will be drawn from environmental anthropology, STS, Black studies, Native studies, and the history of science, including works by Agard-Jones, Blanchette, Murphy, McKittrick, Fennell, Ralph, Cronon, and Todd, and will forefront scholarship about Chicago.

CCTS 22006 (HLTH 22006) 
Decision Modeling for Health Economic Evaluation
David Kim 
This course introduces decision science and economic evaluation that has been increasingly used to inform public health and health care decisions. With a specific focus on the development and application of decision-analytic models, students will learn the state of the current practice of economic evaluation, new tools and methodologies to conduct decision modeling, and emerging areas of research, including the value of information analysis. The course will provide hands-on computer-based learning using the R programming language for data analysis and modeling. A prior experience in R is welcomed, but not required. Applying the concepts and techniques learned in the course, students will undertake a course project of their choice to conduct economic evaluation using decision-analytic models. By the end of this course, students will gain knowledge and practical skills in economic evaluation and decision modeling to help make informed decisions.

CHDV 20000 (HLTH 20000)
Introduction to Human Development 
Sevda Numanbayraktaroglu
This course introduces the study of lives in context. The nature of human development from infancy through old age is explored through theory and empirical findings from various disciplines. Readings and discussions emphasize the interrelations of biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces at different points of the life cycle.

CHDV 24599 (HLTH 24599) 
Historical and Contemporary Issues in US Racial Health Inequality (2nd year standing or above)
Micere Keels 
This course explores persistent health inequality in the U.S. from the 1900s to the present day. The focus will be on racial gaps in urban health inequality with some discussion of rural communities. Readings will largely cover the research on Black and White gaps in health inequality, with the understanding that most of the issues discussed extend to health inequalities across many racial and ethnic groups. Readings cover the broad range of social determinants of health (socioeconomic status, education, access to health care, homelessness) and how these social determinants are rooted in longstanding legacies of American inequality. A major component of class assignments will be identifying emerging research and innovative policies and programs that point to promising pathways to eliminating health disparities.

CHDV 28105 (HLTH 28105)
Access Worlds
Zihao Lin
Access is relational and agentive materializations; it takes moving action in the world to make access happen. What then does access generate? What kinds of communities, social networks, laws, and institutions, among other things does it produce? This course provides the tools for coming to an expansive and ethnographic account of “access” by examining its conceptual ambiguities and practical consequences.
Students will be invited to interrogate diverse scholarly perspectives on access that posit it as measurable entities, as empowerment and rights, as social justice, and as an ethnographic method to question and imagine otherwise. Through selected interdisciplinary literature ranging from ethnographies to policy documents and class discussions, students will learn to see how different conceptions of accessibility and access corresponds to sociohistorical contexts such as the Euro-American postwar social development, the civil rights and independent living movement, de-institutionalization, and the entrenchment and globalization of the bio-psycho-social model as a Western legal framework of disability advocacy. This course prepares us to think about how visions, practices, and relationships of access influence the interventions that urban planners, architects, application designers, state bureaucrats, and activists make in the everyday lives of disabled people? In the urban context, How do cities become the precondition of our understanding of access?

ENGL 10620 (HLTH 26020)
Literature, Medicine, and Embodiment 
Heather Glenny 
This class explores the connections between imaginative writing and embodiment, especially as bodies have been understood, cared for, and experienced in the framework of medicine. We’ll read texts that address sickness, healing, diagnosis, disability, and expertise. The class also introduces a number of related theoretical approaches, including the medical humanities, disability studies, narrative medicine, the history of the body, and the history of science.

FREN 28888 (HLTH 28888) 
Mosquitos and Morphine: A Seminar in the Global Medical Humanities 
Nikhita Obeegadoo
This course examines well-being and illness from transnational, decolonial and intersectional perspectives. Together, we will explore the various ways in which fiction and film can help challenge and expand our notions of what it means to be sick or healthy in complex circumstances. Some guiding threads: To what extent is illness an intensely personal experience, and to what extent does it draw in those around us — family members, friends, partners, medical practitioners, legal counsel? What renewed valences do concepts of autonomy, care and responsibility take when overshadowed by the spectre of disease? How to ethically and productively relate the medical humanities to broader entangled concerns such as migration (both legal and clandestine), gender, class, race, community, queerness and neocolonialism? Beyond the justified responses of fear and anger, what are other ways to relate to death and mortality — ways that are infused with creativity and resilience? How does human “health” relate to planetary and interspecies well-being? Taught in English.

PBHS 23700 (HLTH 23700)
Sexual Health
David Moskowitz
Sexual health is a growing component of public health outreach. The goal of this course is to provide students with a foundational understanding of sexual health from a public health perspective. Through participation in this course, students will increase their knowledge about the history of sexual health promotion in the public health sphere. They will delve into sexual and gender identity construction and explore identity-behavioral expressions. They will critically examine and discuss common sexual health issues addressed by public health practitioners, their epidemiology, and their underlying social determinants; a global health lens will be applied to such examinations. Additionally, recognition of the key methodological considerations in the measurement of sexual behavior and sexual health outcomes will be elucidated (including strengths and limitations of various methodological approaches –quantitative, qualitative, clinical, and biomedical). By the completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate knowledge and application of key theoretical foundations of sexual health promotion and sexual health behavior change and be able to promote sexual health messages through marketing and dissemination. From a policy perspective, student can expect an increased knowledge about issues related to social and legislative policy analyses, their applications, and implications.

PBHS 30910 (HLTH 20910)
Epidemiology and Population Health
Diane Lauderdale
Epidemiology is the basic science of public health. It is the study of how diseases are distributed across populations and how one designs population-based studies to learn about disease causes, with the object of identifying preventive strategies. Epidemiology is a quantitative field and draws on biostatistical methods. Historically, epidemiology’s roots were in the investigation of infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. Since the mid-twentieth century, the scope of epidemiologic investigations has expanded to a fuller range non-infectious diseases and health problems. This course will introduce classic studies, study designs and analytic methods, with a focus on global health problems.

PBHS 31450 (HLTH 27450)
Social Inequalities in Health: Race/Ethnicity & Class
Aresha Martinez-Cardoso
This course examines how social stratification and social inequality shape racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in health. In particular, we will explore the production of race and class inequality in the US and draw on the extant theoretical and empirical literature to understand how these social factors influence health behaviors and health outcomes. Finally, we will review both the classic and emerging methodological approaches used by public health and social scientists to measure and test how these features of society get “under the skin” to shape a variety of health outcomes.

PBHS 31720 (HLTH 21720)
Climate Change and Human Health 
Kate Burrows
Climate change is one of the greatest global health threats facing the world in the 21st century. Through this course, students will gain foundational knowledge in the health effects of climate change. We will begin with several lectures on climate science as it related to the patterns of weather extremes experienced by populations. We will then identify the varying health outcomes linked to different climate-related exposures, emphasizing the specific impacts in vulnerable and high-risk populations. Specific topics include the effects of air pollution, extreme heat and heat waves, droughts, tropical cyclones, changes in vector habitats, and sea-level rise. Finally, we will discuss strategies for public health practitioners to aid communities in preventing or alleviating these adverse effects.

PBHS 34900 (HLTH 24900)
GIS and Spatial Analysis for Public Health (methods course)
Seleeke Flingai
This course serves as an introduction to the core concepts and tools for applying spatial analytic methods to public health questions. Using a combination of lectures, case studies, and hands-on in-class trainings, students will learn fundamental spatial concepts, as well as how to make sense of and prepare spatial health data for mapping and statistical analyses (including georeferencing, geocoding, merging data sources, and describing and analyzing spatial health patterns and relationships). Throughout the course, we will draw from writings and examples in public health, urban planning, sociology, and critical geography studies to gain an understanding not only of the use of mapping in understanding the spatial nature of health and disease, but also the power dynamics of map-making as a practice. By the end of the course, students will become familiar with a breadth of foundational concepts, technical skills, and critical perspectives to produce and interpret maps and spatial health analyses at an introductory level.

PBHS 35500 (HLTH 25500)
Introduction to US Health Policy and Politics
Loren Saulsberry
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the concepts needed to critically evaluate U.S. health policy issues. The course will 1) provide an overview of the U.S. health system including its institutions, stakeholders, and financing mechanisms, 2) describe the politics of health and illuminate how the structure of our political system shapes health policy outcomes, and 3) offer a framework for assessing the critical features central to health policy debates. Building upon this knowledge, the course will conclude with a discussion of strategies for influencing the health policy process and how they might be employed in future leadership roles within the health sector.

PSYC 22350 (HLTH 22350)
Social Neuroscience
Jean Decety
Humans are intensely social animals. Our lives are intertwined with other people, and our well-being depends on others. Social neuroscience examines how the brain mediates social cognition and behavior. It spans diverse species, disciplines (evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, behavioral economics, sociology, and political science), and levels of analysis across the biological organization. Social neuroscience provides an overarching paradigm to investigate social cognition and behavior and to determine where we as a species fit within a broader biological context. A wide range of topics will be examined, including social connections and friendship, sex, mating and aggression, cooperation and social preferences, social and environmental influences on decision-making and behavior, empathy, social contagion, and group coalitions. Interdisciplinary analyses, by integrating approaches from social sciences and biological sciences, significantly expand our knowledge and have the potential to improve our social and living conditions.

SSAD 24950 (HLTH 24950)
International Disability Rights and Justice
Zhiying Ma
The rights of persons with disabilities have become a new frontier of human rights across the world. This course introduces recent developments in concepts, tools, and practices of disability rights both internationally and in different regions/countries. We will pay specific attention to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including its principles, provisions on key topics (e.g., institutionalization, education, employment, and political participation), and the role of state and non-state actors in its implementation. We will also consider the implications of disability rights on global social development and humanitarian work. Moreover, we will critically examine barriers and concerns in realizing disability rights, areas where dominant understandings of disability rights fall short, and alternative approaches to conceptualizing and promoting justice for persons with disabilities. The course will consist of reading and critique of literature, large and small group discussions, guest lectures by practitioners, case studies, and student presentations. Students will develop skills to analyze disability policies or design/evaluate disability inclusive development projects in international settings. This course is for students who’ve been admitted to the Inequality and Global Social Development Study Abroad Program. 

SSAD 26555 (HLTH 26555) 
Asian American Mental Health 
Miwa Yasui
Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing and most diverse racial groups in the US, yet they face significant disparities in mental health care access, stigma, and representation. This introductory course will explore the unique challenges and strengths of Asian Americans across the diaspora, including the historical, sociopolitical and cultural forces that shape identity, family process, mental health and trauma, resilience and resistance at the individual and community level. Throughout the course, we will explore how intersecting identities, including ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, religion, and generational position, impact mental health experiences and access to care for Asian Americans.

HLTH 12103 (GNSE, HIPS, HMRT 12103, ANTH 25212, CHDV 22100)
Treating Trans-: Practices of Medicine, Practices of Theory
Paula Martin
Medical disciplines from psychiatry to surgery have all attempted to identify and to treat gendered misalignment, while queer theory and feminisms have simultaneously tried to understand if and how trans- theories should be integrated into their respective intellectual projects. This course looks at the logics of the medical treatment of transgender (and trans- more broadly) in order to consider the mutual entanglement of clinical processes with theoretical ones. Over the quarter we will read ethnographic accounts and theoretical essays, listen to oral histories, discuss the intersections of race and ability with gender, and interrogate concepts like “material bodies” and “objective science”. Primary course questions include: (1) How is “trans-” conceptualized, experienced, and lived? How has trans-studies distinguished itself from feminisms and queer theories? (2) What are the objects, processes, and problematics trans-medicine identifies and treats? How is “trans-” understood and operationalized through medical practices? (3) What meanings of health, power, knowledge, gender, and the body are utilized or defined by our authors? What relations can we draw between them?

HLTH 24003 (CHDV, HIPS, RLST 24003, SOCI 20582)
Death and Dying
Alexandra Tate
Death happens to everyone. However, dying is as much a social process as an individual one. The factors that impact how, when and where people die, and how societies handle death and dying, are shaped by the structural and cultural forces in our world. These range from economic, geographic, and religious forces to the institutional politics of health care systems. The sociology of death and dying is the systematic study of the structure of the human response to death, dying, and bereavement in their socio-cultural, interpersonal, and individual contexts. Often conceptualized as a discrete event, death is a process that is shaped over the life course. In this course, we will analyze the socio-demographic patterns of death, the factors that shape the process of dying, the economics of dying, and the ways that individuals and groups respond to death. We will also consider the social factors that shape a “good death” and discuss current policies and debates surrounding end-of-life care and aid-in-dying.

BPRO 22700 (HLTH 22700, PHIL, HMRT 22702, GNSE 32705/22705)
Abortion, Morality, Politics, Philosophy 
Jason Bridges, Dan Brudney
Abortion is a complex and fraught topic. Morally, a very wide range of individual, familial, and social concerns converge upon it. Politically, longstanding controversies have been given new salience and urgency by the Dobbs decision and the ongoing moves by state legislatures to restrict access to abortion. In terms of moral philosophy, deep issues in ethics merge with equally deep questions about the nature of life, action, and the body. In terms of political philosophy, basic questions are raised about the relationship of religious and moral beliefs to the criminal law of a liberal state. We will seek to understand the topic in all of this complexity. Our approach will be thoroughly intra- and inter-disciplinary, drawing not only on our separate areas of philosophical expertise but on the contributions of a series of guest instructors in law, history, and medicine. 

BPRO 22800 (HLTH 25310)
Drinking Alcohol: Social Problem or Normal Cultural Practice
Michael Dietler
Alcohol is the most widely used psychoactive agent in the world, and, as archaeologists have recently demonstrated, it has a very long history dating back at least 9,000 years. This course will explore the issue of alcohol and drinking from a trans-disciplinary perspective. It will be co-taught by an anthropologist/archaeologist with experience in alcohol research and a neurobiologist who has experience with addiction research. Students will be confronted with literature on alcohol research from anthropology, sociology, history, biology, medicine, psychology, and public health and asked to think through the conflicts and contradictions. Selected case studies will be used to focus the discussion of broader theoretical concepts and competing perspectives introduced in the first part of the course. Topics for lectures and discussion include: fermentation and the chemistry and pharmacology of alcohol; the early history of alcohol; histories of drinking in ancient, medieval, and modern times; alcohol and the political economy; alcohol as a cultural artifact; styles of drinking and intoxication; how is alcohol metabolized; addiction; how does alcohol affect sensations; social problems; alcohol and religion; alcohol and health benefits; comparative case studies of drinking.

BPRO 24400 (HLTH 24400, MADD 14400, RLST 27804)
Living Our Bodies with Technology
D. Foerster, E. Mireshghi
We live with and in our bodies, and we cannot experience the world without them. Yet, most of the time, we remain unaware of our bodies and how they are shaped by the technological infrastructures we inhabit. This course explores the complex ways in which technologies—broadly understood—mediate and shape our experience of the body. We will engage with philosophical and anthropological perspectives on the various conditions of the human body and examine how these conditions are influenced by technology and the modern configurations of our lived environments. We will explore questions such as: How do brain scans and real-time ultrasounds shape our experience of our inner selves? Is ADHD a timeless condition, or is it a product of new ways of being and knowing the world? How are organ transplants reshaping our understanding of what makes a person whole? How do artists use virtual reality to tell stories of living with such conditions? How do fitness trackers alter our understanding of well-being? Through critical reflection on different modes of knowing our bodies and communicating lived experiences, we will examine how technologies both reinforce and challenge traditional conceptions of the body, as well as create entirely new ways of living within them. Readings will be drawn from medical anthropology, phenomenology, media theory, and the philosophy of science.

BPRO 28300 (HLTH, CHDV 28301, MADD 28300, MUSI 25719) 
Disability and Design 
Michele Friedner
Disability is often an afterthought, an unexpected tragedy to be mitigated, accommodated, or overcome. In cultural, political, and educational spheres, disabilities are non-normative, marginal, even invisible. This runs counter to many of our lived experiences of difference where, in fact, disabilities of all kinds are the “new normal.” In this interdisciplinary course, we center both the category and experience of disability. Moreover, we consider the stakes of explicitly designing for different kinds of bodies and minds. Rather than approaching disability as a problem to be accommodated, we consider the affordances that disability offers for design. This course begins by situating us in the growing discipline of Disability Studies and the activist (and intersectional) Disability Justice movement. We then move to four two-week units in specific areas where disability meets design: architecture, infrastructure, and public space; education and the classroom; economics, employment, and public policy; and aesthetics. Traversing from architecture to art, and from education to economic policy, this course asks how we can design for access.

SOCI 20575 
Logic of Social Inquiry (approved methods course)
Tessa Huttenlocher 
The social sciences contain a remarkable diversity of research methods, theoretical orientations, and substantive topics. Nevertheless, social scientists have developed a shared language that enables them to discuss and evaluate each other’s work. In this course, we will learn to speak that language—the language of research design. Together, we will tackle both the abstract logic of research design as well as the nuts and bolts of executing a methodologically sound project. We will focus on such topics as the relationship between theory and research; the logic of comparison; issues of measurement, bias, and generalizability; basic methods of data collection; and what social scientists do with data once they have collected them. By the end of this course, you will be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of published accounts of social science research, and will have hands-on experience designing and executing your own mini mixed-methods pilot study.

ANTH 20043 (HLTH 20043)
Medicine, Culture, and Society
Neslihan Sen Firestone
Medical anthropology is the study of human health and illness across culture, time, and location. This course will introduce and explore some of the aspects of medical anthropology. We will approach medical systems as cultural systems and discuss health, well-being, illness, and disease as ethnographic questions. This is a reading intensive, discussion-based course. All of the scholars we will read in this class use anthropological tools and methods to explore various conditions in their specific sociocultural and historical contexts. After this course, students will have a working knowledge about the scope of the field of medical anthropology. What is so cultural about disease? How does culture shape illness experience and narrative? What is the significance of language talking about health? How are power and violence defined in the context of health and illness? How is medicine related to culture? This course is designed to help us develop critical thinking about the issues of health and medicine and the ways in which they are related to culture and society. 

CHDV 20100 (HLTH 20100)
Human Development Research Design
Chiara Galli
The purpose of this course is to expose CHD majors in college to a broad range of methods in social sciences with a focus on human development research. The faculty in Comparative Human Development is engaged in interdisciplinary research encompassing anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, and applied statistics. The types of data and methods used by faculty span the gamut of possible methodologies for addressing novel and important research questions. In this course, students will study how appropriate research methods are chosen and employed in influential research and will gain hands-on experience with data collection and data analysis. 

CHDV 23301 (HLTH 23301, KNOW 23301, ANTH 24315, HIPS 27302)
Culture, Mental Health, and Psychiatry
Eugene Raikhel
While mental illness has recently been framed in largely neurobiological terms as “brain disease,” there has also been an increasing awareness of the contingency of psychiatric diagnoses.  In this course, we will draw upon readings from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies to examine this paradox and to examine mental health and illness as a set of subjective experiences, social processes and objects of knowledge and intervention. On a conceptual level, the course invites students to think through the complex relationships between categories of knowledge and clinical technologies (in this case, mainly psychiatric ones) and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness.  Put in slightly different terms, we will look at the multiple links between psychiatrists’ professional accounts of mental illness and patients’ experiences of it. Questions explored include: Does mental illness vary across social and cultural settings?  How are experiences of people suffering from mental illness shaped by psychiatry’s knowledge of their afflictions?

CHDV 25399 (HLTH 25399) 
Psychedelic Healing 
Lorna Hadlock 
Psychedelics have been used for thousands of years by many cultures, to the point that scholars sometimes describe them as a norm for humanity. Yet they have been mostly absent from Western culture, emerging only into mainstream consciousness in the 50s/60s and relegated to countercultural currents. Whereas in other cultures psychedelics have contributed to rich spiritual practices, in the West psychedelics are predominantly associated with political counterculture, consumption or appropriation of indigenous shamanic practices, and most recently biomedical and psychotherapeutic models of healing. How can we make sense of this divergence? Furthermore, after decades of censure, in the past 20 years psychedelics have begun to enjoy increased attention in the West. A psychedelic renaissance in scientific research has led some scholars to believe they represent the next frontier in mental health treatment. Simultaneously, psychedelic tourism in the Amazon jungle is booming. How can we understand the current surge in interest? Given histories of indigenous use of psychedelics and the extractive history of interactions between Westerners and indigenous people, what ethical considerations might psychedelic practitioners and researchers have when consuming, adopting, and adapting psychedelics?

CHDV 27250 (HLTH 27250)
Psychological Anthropology 
Sevda Numanbayraktaroglu
This course traces the development of the field of psychological anthropology and critically reviews the various paradigms adopted by psychological anthropologists. In our discussions, we will draw examples from different cultural contexts to critically examine the relationship between culture and psychological functioning. By the end of the quarter, you will develop an insightful understanding of the cultural sources of the self, mind, behavior, and mental health as well as a substantial knowledge of the field of psychological anthropology.

RLST 29020 (HLTH 29020) 
Reproductive Features 
Emily D. Crews
What is the future of human reproduction? What do religious and literary narratives tell us about when, how, why, and with whom we should (and should not) be reproducing? What do alien pregnancies, magical births, forced surrogacy, and artificial wombs have to do with the landscape of contemporary religions? And what can religion, science fiction, and fantasy—as (sometimes inter-related) modes of speculation about what is possible in an uncertain world—help us to understand about the conditions under which the human species might persist or perish? In this course, we will address these and other questions by putting theories about/from the areas of religion, reproductive politics, and science fiction into conversation with novels, poetry, music, film, and other forms of popular culture. Along the way, we’ll learn how gender, race, migration, the law, and the environment are implicated in the stories and technologies that shape human reproduction.

RLST 22500 (HLTH 22500)
Death
Marielle Harrison
“We die. That may be the meaning of life.” – Toni Morrison
This course is an exploration of death as understood by various religious traditions as depicted in popular culture. Through an exploration of primary and secondary materials, we will explore and discuss topics such as heaven, hell, ghosts, personifications of death and death rituals–comparing contemporary American rituals and narratives about dying with those from ancient China, the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, South Africa, Viking-era Northern Europe, and ancient Egypt. Along the way, we will consider questions like whether it would be preferable to live forever and what role death plays in giving life meaning.

RLST 22245 (HLTH 22245) 
New Testament Readings: Disability, Healing and Ancient Medicine
Erin Walsh 
Within New Testament literature, one encounters numerous narratives of healing and embodied difference. How do these narratives inform our understanding of ancient discourses around the body? What interpretative insights do we gain from reading these texts alongside Greco-Roman discourses of medicine and healing? How have the insights of Disability Studies enriched our understanding of these texts? This Greek exegesis course will introduce students to modern historical, textual, and rhetorical-critical approaches in conversation with the history of interpretation. Students will engage in close readings of the Greek text of representative examples drawn from the canonical gospels. We will examine each passage’s composition, structure, and theology. Through lectures and assignments, students will gain familiarity with the major interpretative trajectories of these narratives within the history of Christian thought. At the beginning of the quarter every student will choose an interpreter or interpretative approach – ancient, medieval, modern, or post-modern – to represent in class discussions. PQ: Undergraduate and Graduate students who have completed classes I and II of the Koine Greek sequence or equivalent. Various levels can be accommodated; please feel free to consult with instructor.

SPAN 28777 (HLTH 28777)
Disease, Caregiving, and Healing: Medical Discourse and Practice in Early Modern Spanish Literature
Pablo García Piñar
What can literature tell us about how early modern Spain imagined the body, understood disease, and negotiated the authority and methods of healing? These questions remain relevant to today’s cultural and ethical debates around medicine. Looking to the early modern period, when medicine was inseparable from religion, politics, and philosophy, allows us to uncover how deeply embedded and contested medical knowledge once was—and still is. In early modern Spain, medicine was not merely a technical or scientific field, but a cultural and social practice shaped by forces such as plague, imperial expansion, and the rise of early scientific thought. This course examines how literature reflected, negotiated, and at times subverted prevailing understandings of health, illness, and medical practice, offering insight into the cultural and epistemological transformations of the period. Students will explore how early modern Spanish literature engages with contemporary medical knowledge and popular belief—illuminating cultural anxieties surrounding disease, healing, and the physician’s social role—while also analyzing how illness, diagnosis, and treatment function as narrative engines that generate conflict, develop character, and drive plot. Readings will include works by Miguel de Cervantes, María de Zayas, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, and others. Taught in Spanish.