Honors 490
International Epidemics: An Interdisciplinary Study of Infectious Disease
Louise Penner W/6/88
617-287-6724
louise.penner@umb.edu
Office Hours: TR 3:30-4:30; M. 4:30-5:00
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Course Description:
Welcome to the honors cross-cultural symposium! The honors program, particularly Rajini Srikanth
and Dick Cluster, designed the senior honors colloquia to provide students with challenging,
interdisciplinary courses with an international focus. The International Epidemics colloquium offers
speakers from a range of academic and professional disciplines, all of whom, in some way, help in the
effort to study, cope with, and/or prevent epidemics in this country and/or abroad.
This course has two main goals:
1) To work together with each other, with faculty, and with practitioners to look at the topic of
epidemics from a very wide variety of disciplinary and practical perspectives.
2) To prepare for a more specifically focused examination, next semester, of AIDS in South Africa in
the context of that country’s history and development.
3) To offer a unique experiential learning opportunity in a two week trip to Cape Town, South Africa
where we meet with social activists, medical professionals, academics, undergraduate students, and
others involved in the struggle with HIV, AIDS, and TB in South Africa. More details about the trip
will be forthcoming.
The Colloquium Structure:
Think of this course itself as a kind of research conference, at which a series of presenters are talking
about their topics. Their various presentations may agree, overlap, diverge, complement each other, or
diametrically disagree. We’re going from talk to talk (and reading to reading, because in this
“conference” there are readings attached), drawing what we can from each and trying to put it all
together for our own purposes. We’ve organized the different talks into a series of what would at an
academic conference be called “panels” -- that is, the presentations within a panel fit within a certain
thematic range, but each speaker is doing his or her own thing. This structure replicates the experience
of functioning within the academic world where one is faced with competing views, conflicting
information, areas where facts are frustratingly many or few. We hope that the class structure also
replicates the experience of all of us living in the “real” world: attempting to make sense out of many
competing facts and opinions about crucial issues affecting our lives, facts and opinions that no one has
previously synthesized into a whole.
The course will challenge all of us, myself included. Though I have been working in the area of what’s
called “medical humanities” [roughly speaking, the study of the humanistic—as opposed to the natural
science—aspects of medicine] for some time, I’m no more expert in the area of infectious disease than
you are. I will contribute my knowledge of some of the disciplines and my experience as a teacher and
researcher, in order to push you to develop your skills at thinking critically about and synthesizing the
vast amounts of new material we’ll be encountering. But I’ll be trying to absorb, critique, and make
use of that same new material, and many of you will be more expert in particular areas than I am. I’m
excited to work with all of you in this intellectually provocative and vitally important interdisciplinary
area of study.
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Assignments and Grading
Reading:
Active, thoughtful reading of all assignments is a basic requirement. Please prepare yourselves for
some degree of confusion about what is assigned, since presenters will be determining these readings
as we go along. That’s why some readings are listed in the schedule and some not. Also, in line with
student recommendations last time, some readings will be due before a given presentation, while others
will be assigned as follow-up. Please check the course website and my handouts regularly, and be in
contact with me with any doubts. I’ve ordered four required books through the bookstore: Plagues and
People, The Demon in the Freezer, Angels in America, Part I, and The Anatomy of a Miracle. All other
assignments will be available for downloading via course website, Healey e-reserves, or public
websites.
Attendance & participation, 10%:
I’ll expect regular attendance and active participation from everyone. I expect everyone to miss no
more than two classes. Exemplary participation can get extra credit. Exemplary doesn’t necessarily
mean talking the most, but taking responsibility for listening and facilitating good group discussion as
well.
Research-in-progress notes (journal), 20%:
For most presentations and associated readings I’ll ask for a journal entry of two-to-three doublespaced pages. I’d like you to: 1) Summarize briefly the main points of the reading-and-presentation. 2)
Comment on your reactions: questions, doubts, agreements, disagreements, relationship between this
and other readings and presentations. 3) List what -- for your purposes -- you see as the most important
questions for further investigation.
Keep a copy for yourself, to be part of your ongoing record of the symposium. Also hand in a
copy to me. I’ll collect these periodically hand them back with comments.
Format: Any format you want, as long as I can follow it. For instance, you could use three
columns, one for summary of points and the others for comments and future research questions, or you
could do each piece in diary format, etc. These notes do not need to be in formal essay format, that that
approach is okay too.
Grading: Satisfactory completion on time = A. If not satisfactory, I’ll let you know why, and
you can rewrite.
Detailed summary/comments for the whole group, 15%
After each presentation, two students will be responsible for preparing an in-depth summary and
comment (minimum five pages). This should be along the same lines as above, but more detailed and
taking account not only of your own reactions but others expressed during class. You’ll post this on the
course web site by the next class meeting. At the beginning of the next class, your pair will lead a brief
discussion (up to ten minutes) of some issue(s) raised by that previous presentation/reading.
Scheduling: We’ll make a sign-up sheet and parcel out responsibility to pairs of students. Each
student will probably contribute to two such reports. (Each time you do one of these, you don’t need
to hand in the individual short journal.)
Grading: Again, satisfactory completion on time = A.
One intermediate paper, 20%
5-8 pages each. Details forthcoming. These will draw on the readings and presentations and not
require additional research other than adding things from your own knowledge and experience. Your
assumed audience for this paper will be each other or future students in this course.
These papers will get evaluative letter grades.
Final paper and presentation, 35%:
This assignment invites you to move outside of the genres of strictly academic writing that you’re used
to. We’d like you to imagine writing in a different kind of genre and to a different kind of audience.
For example, you might consider writing a grant proposal to a government agency, an informational
address to a community center or an audience of high school or grade school students. Define an
audience outside the symposium. In a page, explain who the members of this audience are and why
you want to talk to them about infectious disease. Then, keeping in mind these people, their concerns,
and your reason for addressing them, write a paper that synthesizes and/or expands some important
part of what you’ve gotten from this symposium. Depending on your audience and your purpose, you
may make use of varying numbers of panels and presentations and readings. The narrower your use of
symposium materials is, the more additional research you should do.
This paper will get an evaluative letter grade.
During the last class, students will provide a short presentation of their final project highlighting its
research method, claims, and results. Students will each get feedback from colloquium participants and
me.
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Required Texts: (Available in the UMB Bookstore)
Many other materials will be available either on our Course WIKISITE. Should the site go down for
any reason, copies will be available from Joyce to copy and return immediately to her.
William McNeil, Plagues and Peoples. Anchor. 978-0385121224 Pbk.
Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches: ISBN: 978-1559360616 Pbk.
Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story. Random House. ISBN: 978-0965619660
Pbk.
Patty Waldmeir, Anatomy of Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa.
Rutgers University Press; ISBN 1998 978-0813525822 Pbk.
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Tentative Schedule of Speakers and Readings:
WEEK ONE:
September 5 (Monday) Labor Day Holiday
September 6 (Tuesday) Classes Begin
September 8 (Thursday) Professor Jacqueline Carlon, Classics Dept. Ancient Medicine
Read Chapter 4 of The Healing Hand by Guido Majno (On e-reserve) and Thucydides 2.47.155 on the Athenian plague. A good translation of the latter is online at:
http://www.livius.org/pb-pem/peloponnesian_war/war_t05.html.
WEEK TWO
September 13 (Tuesday) Professor Louise Penner, English Dept. and Catherine Reyes Harvard
Medical Student and UMass Boston graduate
Contagionism versus Anticontagionism in the Nineteenth Century
“Plague, Typhus, Quarantine” and Selection from Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing
Add/Drop Ends
September 15 (Thursday) Professor Peter Taylor, Director, Program in Science,
Technology, and Human Values
Read Fred Pearce, “Inventing Africa,” New Scientist vol 167 issue 2251 - 12 August 2000
WEEK THREE
September 20 (Tuesday): Panel 1 Discussion: Panel 1 Journals Due
September 22 (Thursday): Professor David Hunt, History Dept. World History
Perspective on Epidemic Disease
Read Plagues and Peoples. In UMB bookstore Intro, Chapters 4-6, and handout
WEEK FOUR
September 27 (Tuesday): Professor Cheryl Nixon, English Dept. An 18thc epidemic
Read Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year,
September 29 (Thursday): Michelle Foster, Chemistry Dept.
Read Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer
And suggested reading: Elizabeth A. Fenn, “Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North
America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 4. (Mar.,
2000), pp. 1552-1580.
WEEK FIVE
October 4 (Tuesday) Michelle Foster 2
October 6 (Thursday) John Ebersole, Biology Dept.
Disease Evolution and its Implications.
Read P. W. Ewald, Evolution of infectious disease, Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7
WEEK SIX
October 10 (Monday) Columbus Day (Holiday)
October 11 Panel Two Discussion; Panel Two Journals Due
October 13 (Thursday) John Ebersole 2
Ewald Continued
WEEK SEVEN
October 17 (Monday) Mid-Semester
October 18 (Tuesday) BUZZ CUE
Property Rights and Patients’ Rights:
Patents, Generics, Treaties, and Politics as They Affect Development and Accessibility of
Medications in Third World
October 20 (Thursday) John Ebersole 3
Ewald Continued
WEEK EIGHT
October 25 (Tuesday) Rajini Srikanth, English Dept.
Patents, Generics, Treaties, and Politics as They Affect Development and Accessibility of
Medications in Third World.
Read AVERT primer on “Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights,”
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America press releases, R. Srikanth, “Cipla and
Yusuf Hamied”; Thomas W. Pogge, "Human Rights and Global Health: A Research Program.
"Metaphilosophy Vol. 36 Nos. 1/2 (January 2005): 182-210; and optional further readings.
PAPER #1 Due
October 27 (Thursday) Panel Three Discussion: Panel 3 Journals Due
WEEK NINE
November 1 (Tuesday) Robert Lublin, Theater Dept.
Read Angels in America: Part One: Millennium Approaches
November 3 (Thursday) Louise Rice, RN, Independent Public Health Consultant, former Director of
Public Health and School Health Nursing, Cambridge MA Public Health Dept
Tuberculosis: Ancient Disease, Modern Challenges. Readings TBD
WEEK TEN
November 7 (Monday) Spring '12 Registration Begins
November 8 (Tuesday): TBA
November 10 (Thursday): TBA
Course Withdraw Deadline Pass/Fail Deadline
November 11 (Friday) Veterans Day (Holiday)
WEEK ELEVEN
November 15 (Tuesday) Biology of HIV with Evan Lyon (on VIDEOTAPE)
Read Irwin, Millen, and Fallows, Global AIDS: Myths and Facts, Tools for Fighting the AIDS
Pandemic: preface (Achmat), intro (Farmer), “HIV/AIDS Basics,” and “Myth one: AIDS and
Africa.” Jim Yong Kim and Paul Farmer, “AIDS in 2006 — Moving toward One World, One
Hope?,” New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 355: 645-647, August 17, 2006, Number
7. Optional: two technical papers on AIDS origins from Nature.
November 17 (Thursday) Jennifer Kwan HIV/AIDS mother-to-child transmission
Readings TBA
WEEK TWELVE
November 22 (Tuesday) Panel Four Discussion: Panel Four Journals Due
November 24 to 27 (Thursday to Sunday) Thanksgiving Recess – NO CLASS
WEEK THIRTEEN
November 29 (Tuesday) Rajini Srikanth
Read Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle
December 1 (Thursday) Professor Arachu Castro, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine;
Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change, Harvard University Medical School
Grassroots strategies for AIDS education and treatment; PIH work in Haiti and elsewhere.
Lyon and Farmer, “Inequality, Infections, and Community-Based Healthcare,” Yale Journal of
Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. Paul Farmer and Arachu Castro, “Pearls of the Antilles?
Public Health in Haiti and Cuba,” from Unhealthy Health Policy. Ed. Arachu Castro and
Merrill Singer. New York: Altamira Press, 2004, Pp 3-28. Sarah Z Hoffman, “HIV/AIDS in
Cuba: a model for care or an ethical dilemma?,” African Health Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 3,
December, 2004, pp. 208-209. Also optional additions readings on Cuba.
WEEK FOURTEEN
December 6 (Tuesday): Professor Kim Miller, Director of Women’s Studies, Professor of Art
History, Wheaton College HIV/AIDS Activist Art in South Africa; Readings TBA
December 8 (Thursday): Final Panel Discussion: FINAL JOURNALS DUE S. Africa Discussion
WEEK FIFTEEN
December 13 (Tuesday): Final Project presentations: S. Africa Discussion
December 14 (Wednesday) Classes End
Final Projects are due Thursday, December 15th by 5:00 pm to my mailbox in the English Dept. Office
W/6/82. If, for any reason, you need to email me your final project, please get permission from me first
and contact me if you do not receive confirmation that I’ve received your project within 24 hours.
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