GLOS3305: Science for Sale: Environment, Capital, and Medicine

This class uses a social justice lens to explore the interrelations of scientific discoveries, unequal global economies, and commodification. We will look at practices, new technologies, and policies that are trenchant for the negative impacts they have on environments broadly defined, and for human and non-human populations. We will ask how these practices, technologies, and policies - and the social and economic contexts that produce them - variably impact the health, well being, and valuation of particular populations. In a series of interconnected themes, we will examine what factors produce food insecurity and for whom; where and why pollution of resources such as water happens; the history and current state of antibiotic resistance; climate change and its various effects; and how new technologies can be life-saving and life-denying according to the ways national and global policies determine who gains access and who does not. We will also look at the innovative ways grassroots movements tackle issues confronting particular groups, what constitutes positive social change and by whose definition, and potential ways forward. Final projects focus on website construction or policy documents that have application beyond the classroom. Prereq: soph or jr or sr

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