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AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES (L98)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2021
L98 AMCS 330CCulture & Identity: Of Cooties and Covid: Vernacular Understandings of Contagion3.0 Units
Description:What do we talk about when we talk about contagion? Contagion may be defined by its biological specificity - a virus that takes hold, radiating outward from a ground zero, to be defeated through a warlike engagement of mapping, containment, and destruction - or its economic model utility - a similar movement of financial success or strain. But contagion also exists in our cultural imagination and folklore, from childhood cooties to Typhoid Mary from AIDS to zombies. Vernacular understandings of disease have spurred the anti-vaccination movement and the backlash to it. We talk about contagion all the time, and that talk coproduces our biological, cultural, and ontological understandings of and reactions to disease. This class explores the folklore of contagion and how vernacular discussions about outbreaks and contamination can help us better understand first how contagion can carry larger cultural fears and norms and second how public health projects may need to address more than the purely medical. The first quarter of the course looks at specific contagious outbreaks and vernacular and institutional responses to those outbreaks, with a focus on cholera; the second quarter considers how communities and individuals have mediated their understanding of contagion through their folklore, specifically in the discussion of AIDS. Third, we look at how people in a globalized society use folklore to locate contagion within certain people as sources of fear, with particular attention to SARS and Covid. Finally, in the fourth part, we think about how public policy and public health projects can utilize folklore and vernacular understandings of contagion to better reach target populations, using the current measles outbreak and the anti-vaccination movement as our case study. Assignments will include two short papers to synthesize the discussion, a collection assignment, and a final research paper or project. This course is part of AMCS's new program initiative on "COVID and Political Crisis in the American Experience." Students are encouraged to also preview and pair this course with Prof. Dave Walsh's course, "Fake News: Pandemics, Power, and Propaganda" (L98 301T).
Attributes:A&S IQ: HUM, SDArch: HUMArt: CPSC, HUMBU: BAEN: H
Instruction Type:Remote per COVID-19 Grade Options:CP Fees:
Course Type:HomeSame As:N/AFrequency:Unpredictable / History
SecDays       TimeBuilding / RoomInstructorFinal ExamSeatsEnrollWaits
01M-W----11:30A-12:50PRemote / LA MullinsPaper/Project/Take Home2090
Desc:Remote. Synchronous once a week.
REG-DelayStart: 1/25/2021   End: 5/13/2021
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An “Ident” course is the exact same course as the “Home” (i.e. same instructor, same class time, etc), but is simply being offered to students through another department for purposes of registering under a different department and course number.

Students should, whenever possible, register for their courses under the department number toward which they intend to count the course. For example, an AFAS major should register for the course "Africa: Peoples and Cultures" under its Ident number, L90 306B, whereas an Anthropology major should register for the same course under its Home number, L48 306B.

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