INT545: Science Health and Race in America

This team-taught interdisciplinary course explores race and racism in science and medicine in the United States from the 20th century to today via biological and historical lenses.

This team-taught interdisciplinary course explores race and racism in science and medicine in the United States from the 20th century to today via biological and historical lenses. We will begin the course by exploring an array of sociological, historical, and scientific theoretical frameworks useful in studying the impact of structural race-based social inequality. We'll interrogate the foundations of race-based thinking, the formation of racial thought, and the respective benefits and dangers of "whiteness" and "blackness" throughout the 20th century in the United States. The course will continue through analyses of statistical data, case studies, and creative hands-on laboratory experiments that will increase student understanding of the longstanding history of inequitable availability of doctors and medical services, the ongoing distrust of physicians and incidents of medical experimentation on the black community, the disproportionate load of environmental harms in black communities due to water, air and noise pollution, as well as the impact of food deserts and poor access to good nutrition. As a collaboration between the science and history departments, students will be exposed to the different methodologies of research and study from each discipline. An exploration of the biology of stress in the lab, analyses of scientific articles concerning health care racial disparities, an experiment with medical instrumentation shown to have racial incongruities, and a study of human genes and the idea of race as a biological entity will intersect with lessons in primary and secondary source selection and analysis, interrogation of bias, media literacy, historical argumentation, and written analytical research.