Queer Medicine: Theories, Methods, Provocations

3 units

This seminar explores the intersections of queer and medical anthropology to consider: How do queer experiences challenge medical authority and its influence on the cultural construction of bodies, productivity, and life itself? What theories and methods might characterize a queer medical anthropology? Attending to historical accounts of queerness in medicine, we will center ethnographic studies of queer lives in medical contexts. We will discuss topics including diverse forms of reproduction and kinship, medical constructions of sex and gender, and interventions in queer healthcare. Drawing from intersectional literature in crip theory and Black studies, we will further examine how disability and race are entangled in queer medical encounters. Students will critically reflect on and propose theories and methods for a queer medical anthropology as they work on final papers, presentations, and zines for an end-of-semester symposium.