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Politics of Health: Sexuality, Medicine, and Power

Register for Politics of Health: Sexuality, Medicine, and Power for Winter 2022 quarter!

Course Description

This course will study sexual health as a terrain of contestation in modern America, with
ramifications for the policing of particular bodies, especially those of women, young people,
people of color, working-class people, and people living in poverty. The course will also study
how sexual health is a concept deployed by various State and non-State actors to target specific
populations for reform or discipline. We will examine the involvement of religious authorities,
legislators and judges, nurses, philosophers, physicians, social workers, teachers, student peers,
and intersectional grassroots activists in making claims about what counts as sexual health and
how it is to be achieved. We will learn the meaning and significance of these key concepts:
social determinants of health and disease, structural inequality, and health disparities. We will
interrogate the concepts of sexual rights and freedom, consent, and self-care in terms of how
these ideas are incorporated or resisted in varying definitions of sexual health. We will carry out
this ambitious ten-week interdisciplinary inquiry using tools of intersectional feminist analysis.

Professor Jennifer Terry
Pronouns: she/they
Winter 2022
Class meetings: Tuesdays/Thursdays 12:30-1:50pm
Class location: ALP 2600
Office hours: Tuesdays 3-4, or by appointment
Email address: jterry@uci.edu