Contagious Surveillance: A History of Surveillance and Public Health

Catalog description

This seminar examines the historical and contemporary relationships between contagions and practices of surveillance. This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary theories of surveillance studies using historical frameworks such as discipline, control, capitalism, media, and privacy during times of crisis, as it relates to race, gender, and class. Seminar discussions will include cases where patriarchal power and racialized systems were used to promote perceptions of security, fear, exposure, and control, while constructing medical knowledge. As praxis, students will use historical research strategies to design and produce a digital history project that uses technology tools such as maps, visualizations, textual analysis, and/or audio-visual production. All digital history skills will be taught in this course. All technical skill-levels are welcome.