Fall 2007

• ANTH 440 Biotechnology and Culture
  Instructors: Anne Pollock, ap5@rice.edu
  Tuesday/Thursday 1-2:20

  In the lab and in the newspapers, topics in biotechnology are frequent subjects of debate. From assisted reproductive technology and stem cells, to pharmaceuticals and imaging technologies, to life support and its termination, bio-technologies are shaping our lives in unprecedented ways. This course uses science studies and anthropological approaches to provide students with both information and analytical tools to grapple with the intersections of biotechnology and culture in American society.

  This course does not seek to be comprehensive, but is arranged to map specific sites at which boundaries of the body are technologically mediated. The first theme is ingestibles, covering food and pharmaceuticals. The second is incisions, and explores the cultural practices around surgery, from cosmetic to cardiac. The third is inspections, and covers the ways that screenings of our mouths, brains, and genetic codes are shaping our experiences. The fourth theme is interpretations, and draws together material on the teaching and display of biology. The final theme is im/mortality, and covers reproductive technologies, stem cells, and death.

  This course is appropriate for students who are interested in careers in medicine and the life sciences, or who are interested in being engaged in broad public discussions on these themes. No particular background in anthropology or topics in biotechnology is required, but students are expected to read thoroughly and critically.

  Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings. Short papers/projects addressing each course theme are distributed throughout the course schedule. Grading is based both on class participation and on these assignments. On the due date of each short paper, there will be no readings for that day. There is no final paper or project.

• HUMA 261 Complementary and Alternative Medicine:
  An Ethnographic Exploration of Health and Disease
  Instructors: Laurence McCullough and Amy McGuire
  Meeting: 2:30pm- 3:50pm TR  TBA
  Distribution Credit Group I
  
  This course will examine a variety of folk and popular health belief systems known as complementary and alternative medicine. Drawing on works of narrative, legal sources, and articles in the medical literature, we will compare the different health belief systems with conventional biomedicine and discuss society’s response to them.

• PHIL 337 Research Ethics
  Instructor: Baruch Brody
  Meeting: 1:00pm- 4:00pm W TBA
  Distribution Credit Group I
  
  An examination of ethical issues raised by biomedical research including the use of animal and human subjects, stem cell and gene transfer research, research on vulnerable populations and the commercial sponsorship of biomedical research.

• ENGL 273 Medicine and Media
  Instructor: Kirsten Ostherr
  Meeting: 9:25am - 10:40am TR TBA
  Distribution Credit Group I
  
  This interdisciplinary course explores the role of imaging technologies in the practice of medicine, and the role of mass media in shaping our understandings of the body, health, and disease. Examination of how visual media structure “ways of seeing” for physicians and public. Emphasis on developing media literacy skills.

• ENST 314: Environmental Health

  Contact: Renee Pean [Coordinator, Environmental Studies-Center for the Study of the Environment and Society]

  This Fall 2007, we will be offering a new course entitled Environmental Health, ENST 314, that may be of interest to your Rice PreMed Society members. This course will provide an overview of environmental health issues, including an introduction to key epidemiological methods used to study environmental health. The course includes guest lecturers, primarily clinicians and researchers from the Texas Medical Center, and critical readings of studies addressing key environmental health issues. It will taught by Winifred J. Hamilton, PhD, SM, assistant professor and director of the Environmental Health Section, Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine.