SOC 189a: SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY AND HEALTH
Fall 2013
Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11-11:50am
Shiffman Humanities Center 219
Professor Sara Shostak
Email: sshostak@brandeis.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 1:30-3pm, and by appt.
Office: Pearlman 207
Graduate Teaching Fellow
Caty Taborda
Email: ctaborda@brandeis.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 12-1pm
Office: Pearlman 104
Peer Teaching Assistant
Jeff Herman
Email: jherman@brandeis.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 12-1pm
Office: Usdan, Lower Dining Area
Introduction
This course introduces the sociological study of the body and the many varied sites at which it is
implicated in health and illness. Fundamentally, this course asks three sets of questions:
1) What is the lived experience of the body/self? How is this experience shaped through social
identities (gender, race, class), activities (body work, athletics, consumption), and interaction with
others? What are the relationships between body image, identity, and health?
2) How does medicine, as a social institution, interact with the body? How do social and cultural
assumptions act both on and through our physical selves? What are the health implications of
these assumptions?
3) How is the body politic (both individual and collective) made a subject of regulation,
surveillance, and control? What does this mean across multiple domains of life (e.g., sex &
reproduction, medical interventions, food/nutrition, and exercise)? How do body politics shape
people’s (very unequal) opportunities to be healthy and well?
Learning Goals
In this course, students will
1. Explore diverse theoretical perspectives on the body as a lived experience, a social phenomenon,
and a political subject;
2. Gain insight into core sociological concepts -- including stigma, identity, gender, and
medicalization -- as they apply to the body, health and illness;
3. Consider how race, class, gender, religion, and other dimensions of social organization shape
individual experiences and social understandings of the body and health;
4. Analyze issues of body, embodiment and health through the lens of a “sociological imagination”;
5. Apply these analytic perspectives to their own lives and communities.
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Course Requirements
1. Attendance and Respectful Participation
This course covers a lot of material, which we will navigate together. To support the collective learning
process in this class, your attendance to both lecture and discussion section is expected. You are also
expected to bring readings, along with your notes on the readings, to class. Consistent absences will be
noted and reflected in your final grade. Laptops are allowed but ONLY for taking notes or examining
readings. Other observed uses of your laptop will result in a reduction of your attendance grade.
As soon as we have been assigned discussion section rooms, we will meet in discussion sections during
class time each Thursday. We will announce the beginning of sections in class, and we will post section
assignments on LATTE. These smaller discussion sections will provide an important opportunity to
further explore and develop your thoughts, questions, and critiques.
I expect that you will be respectful of others in class. Examples include arriving on time, not leaving
early, listening when others speak, not monopolizing discussion time, and not having side-discussions.
Please turn cell phones and pagers off.
2. Response Papers
During the course of the semester, you will turn in four response papers that address the set of readings
for that week. These 3-5 page papers should concisely summarize the key themes presented in the week’s
readings (1-2pp) and then either raise questions about these themes or provide an analysis, elaboration, or
critique in your own words (2-3pp). Please be sure to engage directly with the readings and not simply
reiterate information from lecture.
Feel free to use these papers to let us know what has puzzled, intrigued, or challenged you, and we will
respond accordingly. You may also use these papers as a means of “making personal” the concepts or
analytic frameworks from the readings; for example, you may refer to relevant personal experiences,
current events and newspaper articles, or other sources. That said, we will sometimes ask you to read each
other’s response papers, so please do not write about anything you would not want to share with a
classmate.
If your paper meets these basic requirements, you will receive complete credit for it.
In order to help you stay on track through the semester, you are required to write a response paper for one
of the weeks in each of the following categories:
DUE
DUE
Response Paper 1 -Week 3
9/12
or
Week 4
9/18
Response Paper 2 -Week 5
9/25
or
Week 6
10/3
Response Paper 3 -Week 7
10/10 or
Week 8
10/17
Response Paper 4 -Week 9
10/24 or
Week 10
10/31
Because these papers are meant to support your understanding of the readings, and our discussions in
class, you must turn your paper in the week the readings are being discussed (i.e., by Thursday’s
class of that week). Late response papers will not receive credit, though we will comment on them, at
your request.
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3. Experiment in Living/Body Work Paper – Due October 17
This 5-6 page paper will describe and analyze the results of an experiment that you will conduct during
the first part of the course. For one week, you will change one concrete aspect of your bodily practices
(e.g., how you eat, how you work, how you exercise, how you dress, how you do your hair or make-up,
etc.) and report on the effects on your wellbeing, your sense of self, your social interactions, etc. Please
do not undertake any changes that you perceive to pose a risk to your health or wellbeing. Your paper
will reference at least three course readings from weeks 3-8 in describing your experience, and provide
complete citations to each. A detailed handout will be given in class describing further this assignment.
4. Analysis of a Campus/Local Event – Due by November 25
(note: you may turn it in at any time before the due date!)
For this assignment, you will attend a campus or local event of your choice, that is connected – in some
way – to the broad issues of body & health that are at the center of our class. This might be a student
organized panel on access to food in Waltham; a lecture by a Brandeis professor or visiting scholar on
issues of health, wellness, gender, intersex, health care reform, etc.; a community based health fair or
farmers’ market, or; an event organized by a club on campus (note: movies do not “count” as events,
unless there is a discussion/panel/etc. following the movie). At the event, you will take notes on what you
observe (hear, see, learn), and also your responses to it. You will then write a 5-6 page paper that not
only describes the event, but analyzes it using at least four readings from our class as
“lenses.” A detailed handout will be given in class describing further this assignment.
Note: We will make a point of letting you know when we learn of appropriate events and activities. We
are also happy to help you think about whether a possible opportunity is appropriate for this assignment
(suggestion – talk with one of us before you attend!). So that you have some familiarity with the course
themes and readings before beginning this assignment, we recommend that you attend an event in
October or November.
5. Foodways Paper – Due December 9
This 8-10 page paper will describe and analyze the results of a project you will conduct into access to
food, in a location of your choice, other than the Brandeis University campus (i.e., Waltham, your home
town, or some other place where you’ve spent a significant amount of time). This investigation will
include conducting at least one interview, documenting where/when food is accessible (or not), and
researching local hunger relief, exercise, and/or food system change focused initiatives. Be sure to
reference at least six course readings from weeks 7-14 and provide complete citations to each. A detailed
handout will be given in class describing further this assignment.
Evaluation
Grades will be computed on the following basis:
Attendance
15%
Response Papers (4 @ 5 points each)
20%
Body Work Paper
25%
Event Report/Analysis
15%
Food Ways Paper
25%
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Final grades will be calculated using the following distribution:
94-99 A
90-93 A87-89 B+
84-86 B
80-83 B77-79 C+
74-76 C
70-73 C-
67-69 D+
64-66 D
60-63 D<63 F
Please note: there is no curve in this class. You will be evaluated based on your own work, rather than in
comparison to your classmates.
Course Policies
Policies for Written Work
I place a high premium on careful research and clear organization and writing. We will spend time in
class talking about how to do each of these assignments. Papers may not be re-written. This means you
should offer your best effort the first time and ask questions if you need clarification before completing
any of the assignments. I encourage you to use the Writing Center as you work on your papers.
Written assignments are due at the beginning of class. I will NOT accept your assignments through email. I only accept hard copies. If you have an emergency and are unable to complete an assignment,
you must speak with me as soon as possible so we can discuss how you will complete the assignment. Do
not assume that you may hand in all of your assignments at the end of the course, or that you will be
granted an extension.
You will lose one half of a letter grade for each 24 hours after the due date the assignment is turned in
(i.e. if you would have received an A but your paper is turned in within the first 24 hours after it is due,
you will receive an A-, etc.). Documented personal illness and personal/family emergencies constitute the
only acceptable grounds for late papers.
In the interest of fairness, all written papers are to be typed, double-spaced, using a 11-12-pt. Times New
Roman font, 1 inch margins. Please be sure to include page numbers, appropriate citations, and
bibliographies.
Academic Integrity
You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see
http://www.brandeis.edu/studentaffairs/srcs/ai/index.html). My policy is to give a “0” for any
assignment that contains plagiarized material. Additionally, I will refer any suspected instances of
alleged dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty
may result in sanctions including but not limited to failure in the course, failure on the assignment in
question, suspension from the University and/or educational programs.
Reasonable Accommodations
If you are a student who has academic accommodations because of a documented disability, please contact me
and give me a copy of your letter of accommodation in the first two weeks of the semester. If you have questions
about documenting a disability, please contact Beth Rodgers-Kay in the Academic Affairs Office (x63470,
brodgers@brandeis.edu).
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Books available at the campus bookstore and on reserve at the library
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. 1997. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. New York: Vintage
Books.
Gimlin, Debra. 2002. Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Groce, Nora Ellen. 2005 [1985]. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s
Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Preves, Sharon. 2003. Intersex & Identity: The Contested Self. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
All other readings will be posted on Latte.
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Schedule of Sessions and Assigned Readings
Week 1 &2
Introduction and Theorizing Bodies I
August 29
Overview and Introductions
September 4
Miner, Horace. 1956. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” The American
Anthropologist 58: 503-507.
Available at URL: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Margaret M. Lock. 1987. “The Mindful Body: A
Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology.” Medical Anthropology
Quarterly 1:6-41.
Recommended: Grosz, E. Refiguring Bodies. 2005. Pp. 43-47 in The Body: A
Reader. Miriam Fraser and Monica Greco (Ed.) New York: Routledge.
Week 3
Body, Self, and Identity – Body Projects
September 9
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. 1997. The Body Project: An Intimate History of
American Girls. New York: Vintage Books.
Introduction & Chapter 1
September 11
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. 1997. The Body Project: An Intimate History of
American Girls. New York: Vintage Books.
Chapters 3 & 4
September 12
September 16 Craig, Maxine Leeds. 2002. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black
Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chapters 1&2
Week 4
Body, Self, and Identity – Body Work and the Beauty Industry
September 16
Gimlin, Debra. 2002. Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chapters 1 & 2
September 17
**Brandeis Thursday**
Gimlin, Debra. 2002. Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Chapters 3&4
September 18
Mears, Ashley. 2011. Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model.
Introduction & Chapter 5.
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Week 5
Body, Self, and Identity – Being an Athlete
September 23
George, Molly. 2005. “Making Sense of Muscle: The Body Experiences of
Collegiate Women Athletes.” Sociological Inquiry 75(3): 371-345.
September 25
Wacquant, Loic. 1995. “Pugs At Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labor Among
Professional Boxers.” Body and Society 1(1): 65-93
Week 6
September 30
Body, Self, and Identity – Interventions and Their Consequences
Gilman, Sander. 2000. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of
Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chapter 3: The Racial Nose
Kaw, Eugenia. 1993. “Medicalization of Racial Features: Asian American
Women and Cosmetic Surgery.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 7(1):74-89
Film (in class): “Killing Us Softly 3” (2000)
October 2
Cummings, S. R., X. Ling, and K. Stone. 1997. “Consequences of Foot Binding
Among Older Women in Beijing, China.” American Journal of Public Health
87:1677-1679.
October 3
Kang, Miliann. 2010. “Manicuring Intimacies: Inequality and Resistance in
Asian-Owned Nail Salons.” In Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies, and the
Politics of Care. Edited by Eileen Boris and Rhacel Salazar Parrenas. Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press.
Week 7
October 7
The Body and Medicine – Medicalization and Enhancement
Conrad, Peter. 1992. “Medicalization and Social Control.” Annual Review of
Sociology 18: 209-32.
Becker, Gay and Robert Nachtigall. 1992. “Eager for Medicalisation: The Social
Production of Infertility as a Disease.” Sociology of Health & Illness 14(4) 456471.
October 9
Conrad, Peter and Deborah Potter. 2004. “Human Growth Hormone and the
Temptations of Biomedical Enhancement.” Sociology of Health and Illness
26(2):1-32.
October 10
Szymczak, Julia and Peter Conrad. 2006. “Medicalizing the Aging Male Body:
Andropause and Baldness” Pp. 89-111 in Medicalized Masculinities. Edited by
Dana Rosenfeld and Christopher Faircloth. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press.
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Week 8
The Body and Medicine – Medicalization and Sex/Gender
October 14
Hartley, Heather. 2003. "'Big Pharma' in our Bedrooms: An Analysis of the
Medicalization of Women's Sexual Problems." Pp. 89-129 in Gender
Perspectives on Health and Medicine: Key Themes, vol. Advances in Gender
Research, v.7: Elsevier.
October 16
Mamo, Laura and Jennifer R Fishman. 2001. “Potency in All the Right Places:
Viagra as a Technology of the Gendered Body.” Body & Society 7:13-35.
Loe, Meika. 2004. The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in
America. New York: New York University Press.
Chapter 3: “Fixing the Broken Male Machine
October 17
Gura, Trisha with Julie Goodman. 14 January 2009. “The Short End of the Stick”
Available at URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trisha-gura/the-short-end-ofthe-stic_b_157832.html
Film (in class): “Short” Available at URL:
http://www.notes.co.il/alterman/27320.asp
**Experiment in Living/Body Work Paper Due**
Week 9
October 21
The Body and Medicine – Intersex and Identity
Preves, Sharon. 2003. Intersex & Identity: The Contested Self. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 1-2
Film (in class): “Sex Unknown”
October 23
Preves, Sharon. 2003. Intersex & Identity: The Contested Self. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 3-4
October 24
Preves, Sharon. 2003. Intersex & Identity: The Contested Self. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press.
Chapter 5-6
Week 10
The Body Politic -- Sex and Reproduction
October 28
Schalet, Amy. 2011. Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of
Sex. Chapter 1, “Raging Hormones, Regulated Love.” Chicago, University of
Chicago Press.
October 30
Mamo, Laura, Nelson, Amber and Aleia Clark. 2011. “Producing and Protecting
Risky Girlhoods.” Pp. 121-145 in Three Shots at Prevention: The HPV Vaccine
and the Politics of Medicine's Simple Solutions, edited by K. Wailoo, J.
Livingston, S. Epstein, and R. Aronowitz. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Casper, Monica J. and Laura M. Carpenter. 2008. “Sex, Drugs, and Politics: The
HPV Vaccine for Cervical Cancer.” Sociology of Health & Illness 30:886-899
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October 31
Brückner, Hannah and Peter Bearman. 2005. "After the Promise: The STD
Consequences of Adolescent Virginity Pledges." Journal of Adolescent Health
36:271-278.
Talbot, Margaret. 3 November 2008. "Red Sex, Blue Sex: Why Do So Many
Evangelical Teen-agers Become Pregnant?" The New Yorker.
Week 11-14
The Body Politic -- Food Ways and the Social Shaping of Bodies and Body
Images
November 4
Gottlieb, Robert, and Anupama Joshi. 2010. “Accessing Food.” Pp. 39-58 in
Food Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
November 6
Cannuscio Carolyn C., Weiss Eve E. and David A. Asch. 2010. “The
Contribution of Urban Foodways to Health Disparities.” Journal of Urban Health
87(3): 381–393
November 7
Gottlieb, Robert, and Anupama Joshi. 2010. “Forging New Food Routes.” Pp.
151-176 in Food Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
November 11
Guthman, Julie. 2008. “‘If They Only Knew’: Color Blindness and
Universalism in California Alternative Food Institutions.” The Professional
Geographer 60(3): 387–397.
November 13
Saguy, Abigail. 2013. “What’s Wrong With Fat?” Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Introduction, Online at:
http://saguy.squarespace.com/storage/WWwF%20Intro.pdf
Interview clips (in class): http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/03/18/ucla-professorabigail-saguy-on-whats-wr
November 14
Saguy, A. and K. Riley. 2005. “Weighing Both Sides: Morality, Mortality and
Framing Contests over Obesity.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law
30(5): 869-921.
November 18
Throsby, K. 2007. “’How Could You Let Yourself Get Like That?’: Stories of
the Origins of Obesity in Accounts of Weight Loss Surgery.” Social Science &
Medicine 65(8): 1561-1571.
November 20
Lovejoy, Meg. 2001. “Disturbances in the Social Body: Differences in Body
Image and Eating Problems among African American and White Women.”
Gender & Society 15:239-261.
November 21
Sobo, Elisa J. “The Sweetness of Fat: Health, Procreation, and Sociability in
Rural Jamaica.” Pp. 256-271 in Food and Culture: A Reader. Edited by Carol
Counihan & Peggy von Esterick. New York: Routledge.
November 25
No reading. Bring your Foodways paper data to class.
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Week 15
The Body Politic: The Social Construction of Disability
December 2
Groce, Nora Ellen. 2005 [1985] Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language:
Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Chapters 1-4
Film: “Sound and Fury”
December 4
Groce, Nora Ellen. 2005 [1985] Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary
Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chapters 5-8
December 5
Parens, Erik and Adrienne Asch. 2003. “Disability Rights Critique of Prenatal
Genetic Testing: Reflections and Recommendations.” Mental Retardation and
Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews 9: 40-47.
Week 16
December 9
Concluding Discussion
** Foodways Paper Due**
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