Health, Race, and Colonialism

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

As a point of departure, this course establishes the relationship between medical culture, health, and colonialism, exploring how Western medical discourses have shaped colonized bodies as "other," reinforcing racial inferiority, invisibility, and marginalization. Therefore students will explore the making as well as the legacies of physical and psychological hegemony, but also practices of refusal and resilience against historical and ongoing colonial violence. Although the primary focus of the fictional and non-fictional documents in this course will be on the wider, diasporic Caribbean, they will be paired with selected excerpts from thematic essays to enhance students' contextual, conceptual, and theoretical exploration of these topics. Topics broadly include: medical racism and the racial prejudice; (neo)colonial pollution; mental health and racism; racialized minorities' experience in health care; humanitarian aid and racial violence; and practices of cultural and ecological resistance. The course assumes no prior experience with the topics highlighted in the description. Finally, the course will be conducted entirely in French, and all written work will be composed in French.