HIST 164 - Governing the Body: Health/Eugenics/Population Control in Global Perspective

Concerns about health and population transcend both temporal and geographic boundaries. These are problems that have preoccupied governments, colonial armies, international organizations, and individual families throughout history. While disease has affected populations from the earliest days of human civilization, doctors and politicians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries developed new and different ways of governing bodies. This course traces the dramatic shift from a concern about the transmission of infectious diseases to an overriding fear about the “quality and quantity” of families, workers, and soldiers. Using a global/comparative approach, we will explore themes such as the history of epidemic disease control, population policy and eugenics, and the creation of international health organizations. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement, and can count towards “Race and Indigeneity,” or “Law and Social Justice,” or “Global/Comparative” fields. Alternate years. (4 Credits)