NYU D&T 2020 #3: Identities and Bodies.

Announcements

Agenda

Assignments

  • Due Thursday 2/6:
    • If you haven’t already, finish the assignments from last week. Starting on Thursday, every class session in which your blog is not listed on the class site will lead to a 0.5 point deduction from your midterm grade.
    • Pick a piece of fictional pop culture media that you think propagates (or analyzes) the biases that derived from historical medical discrimination. Post a link to this media on your blog.(Hint: Medical dramas, legal dramas, and superhero stories can be a good place to start.) We will have a screening and discussion during class. NOTE: A description is great, but I’d also like to see a LINK to the media.
    • Blog Post. Do some internet searching (or other research) on the intersection of the technology with your partner’s salient identity. Write a blog post on what you find–do you think it’s relevant to your exercise partner? Please cite URLs and other resources that you find.
    • Reading. Read Chapter 3 of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. Note that the contents of this chapter discuss violent situations. While reading, consider these questions: Who is perpetuating the bias? What is their salient identity?
      • Who is at the receiving end of the bias? What is their salient identity?
      • How is the bias being perpetuated?
      • Could the issue of bias have been avoided?
  • Due Tuesday 2/11:
    • Blog Post. Review the multimedia interactive at the bottom of Brooklyn Historical Society’s web page for their exhibit Taking Care of Brooklyn. Do you see any medical or research bias implied in any of these artifacts?
  • Extra Credit. Write a blog post that reflects on this paragraph from Chapter 3 of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, page 84:Β 

β€œAmerican medicine developed under the expansive influence of European scientific racism. As a consequence, early gynecologists demonstrated their medical knowledge through their treatment of and writings about enslaved women as gynecological patients who purportedly felt little or no pain as they underwent invasive surgical procedures. Antebellum-era doctors continued the American tradition of reinforcing prevailing racial stereotypes about β€œblack” women through their writings. These men recognized the importance of medical journals, especially as the field became more legitimized.”