Birth Control: Population, Politics and Power

Semester and Year	SP 2008
Course Number	K20.1398
Section	001
Instructor
Days	Tue
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	SOC

Description

What is the political and economic value of people?  Who has the right to control human reproduction and why?  How do individuals express reproductive autonomy, and how do states exercise population control?  This course will focus on birth control (broadly defined as the management of human reproduction) as a lens through which to see how the evaluation and cultivation of national populations has shaped government in the modern world.  In discussing and writing about topics such as race and eugenics, overpopulation and sustainability, sterilization and abortion, human rights and demographic nationalism, students will draw on a variety of primary and secondary sources to develop their own ideas about government and self-government in the age of birth control. Readings will include works by Angela Davis, Thomas Malthus, Emma Goldman, Michel Foucault and Margaret Sanger.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)