[bioundgrd] STS.909: Social Studies of Genetics, Complexity, and Race

[Janice Chang]

>****************
>STS.909:  Social Studies of Genetics, Complexity, and Race
>Visiting Prof. Joan H. Fujimura
>Tuesday, 2:00 – 5:00pm; E51-390
>Spring Semester 2007
>
>This seminar examines two areas of research: 
>biomedical studies that impinge on race and 
>ethnicity and studies of biological complexity 
>at the beginning of a new millennium.  Debates 
>about race, genetics, and medicine bring 
>together social, a biological, medical, and 
>economic problems. We will examine debates about 
>race and genetics within the context of new 
>research on biological complexity.  In this 
>postgenomic era, we have a proliferation of 
>efforts to examine biology and complexity, 
>especially as they relate to health and 
>medicine.  Biology and a myriad of other 
>disciplines have joined together to produce 
>multidisciplinary modeling of complexity to 
>explore ‘the systems of life.  Yet, within a 
>recent debate raging in the U.S. in biological, 
>medical, and public arenas about race and 
>biology, some have argued that race is useful in 
>medical diagnosis and treatment and that there 
>are biological and even genetic differences 
>between different racial and ethnic groups. 
>What can biology in the new millennium teach us 
>about biomedical approaches that use race as a 
>variable?  What can debates about race, 
>genetics, and medicine teach us about biological 
>complexity?   We will examine the collision, or 
>lack of collision, of these two areas of 
>research using the tools of social studies of 
>science, history of biology, and analyses of 
>economic arguments and hopefully develop new 
>approaches to the problems.
>
>
>
>Kris Kipp
>Academic Administrator
>Program in Science, Technology, and Society
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology