TUTORIAL - Genetics in Society

Undergraduate / Graduate

What is the human genome, and what can it tell us about humanity? What constitutes the appropriate construction and use of genetic claims? While efforts to fully map the human genome peaked in the 1990s, the stakes of these questions long preceded the genomic era, and have long structured social worlds. This course will take a critical approach to the history and anthropology of genetics and genomics, focusing on the social and ethical implications in historical and contemporary iterations of genetics. We will consider how, over the course of the twentieth century, the genome came to represent a source of authority with regards to human nature, occupying a central place in defining individual and group identities, history, policy, and reconciliation efforts. We will begin by considering the cultural and epistemic authority of the genome concept and the power dynamics in which it arose. We will then examine the relationships between genetic concepts and a number of scientific and social themes, including heredity and eugenics, diversity and human variation, identity, racialization, nationalism, disability, big data, and medical risk and promise. We will conclude with the contemporary 'postgenomic' era, in which many stakeholders are grappling with the question of what the human genome, and all the information gleaned from its sequencing, actually means.