3 credits
Spring 2026 Lecture Upper DivisionScienceHumanities
This course examines the history of material cultures of health care in the United States. The class will analyze how technological innovation has become central to medicine over the last two centuries and how we are coping with the consequences, both intended and unintended, of our reliance upon such medical devices. We will look at identities associated with medical devices, the ways in which disease is constructed, how technologies contribute to the naming of maladies, and implications for emergent bioengineering and biotechnologies.
Learning Outcomes1Appreciate the circumstances and history of technological innovation in relation to medicine.
2Understand and recognize how assumptions about health influence the practice of science and development of technologies during the late 19th and 20th centuries.
3Analyze the design of objects to understand cultural consequences of their use.
4Develop skills for reading critical historical commentaries and evaluating them.
5Gain ability to question technological artifacts, practice, and knowledge in historical context.
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