Race, Science, and Disease in the Americas

Catalog description

Surveys a variety of debates over race and disease since the European overseas expansion to the Americas, particularly in those regions that developed plantation-based agriculture. Begins with the medical and scientific construction of ideas about race from the conquest to the eighteenth century. Places the development of racial theories of sickness and health in a broad social and political context, and, in particular, explains the medical salience of race in the settings of slavery and colonialism. Discussions will focus primarily on Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States, but will also explore the making of knowledge about race in global setting. Cross-listed with HST/LAS.