Syllabus updated April 23!
CHID 250D: Politics, philosophy, and public health
Spring 2023
The basics
Instructor: Jessie Seiler, jseiler@uw.edu
Meetings: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:30 to 12:20, Thompson Hall 335
Office hours: Fridays, 1:30pm on Zoom: https://washington.zoom.us/my/jseiler
But if that time doesn’t work and you’d like to talk, please email for an appointment!
Best way to get in touch with me: Email! Please don’t use Canvas to get in touch with me, I’ll never see it, but I check my email way too much and will typically respond quickly if it’s within workday hours (9 am to 5 pm).
Course summary
Some of the most critical challenges of our current era are related to public health. Whether we are considering police and state violence, COVID-19, racism, or oppression more broadly, all of these emergencies cause poor health outcomes, often for the most marginalized people in our society. These issues are all political, with causes that can be traced through histories of a desire for wealth and power. A thorough understanding of how to address them must also be rooted in philosophy, as many of our epistemological and ethical frameworks for public health work are currently not sufficient to help us navigate these crises. This course will explore political and philosophical angles on selected current public health emergencies, including the intersection of anti-Black racism and weight stigma, our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and violence motivated by transphobia and homophobia.
Course structure
Most of our sessions will be seminars, meaning that students will learn through facilitated discussion, guided by a series of assigned readings related to topics that will change each week. Much of the work outside of class will be in preparing for class, including readings and regular reflections. Students will be asked to make decisions about how they would like to be evaluated. All readings will be available on Canvas, with the exception of Oedipus Rex, which you should be able to find at the library.
Learning objectives
By the end of this class, students will be able to:
- Define and describe the social and political determinants of health
- Describe the differential effects of the American social and political context on people with marginalized and multiply marginalized identities
- Critique our response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies using their understanding of our current epistemological and aesthetic context
Assignments
Note: grade percentages are tentative, as are some of these assignments themselves; see syllabus section on student choices.
Participation: 30%
Student participation is an essential component of any successful learning environment, and this is particularly true of seminars. Please come prepared to engage one another and discuss readings and films. Participation grades will reflect engagement and active listening. In-person attendance is strongly encouraged, but in the event of illness or other extenuating circumstances (see next section), we will come to an alternative arrangement. Completing the pre-class survey will also count toward the participation grade, as will completing the participation/progress surveys, which are due each Friday at 5 pm.
Preparation for class: 40%
Because the seminar structure relies on students putting some time and thought into the readings before each Monday class, students will turn in short reflections on the readings. The format and content will vary based on the reading and each student’s inclinations, but may include a paragraph responding to the reading, questions for exploration with the class during seminar, or other possibilities. These will be due each Monday at 10 am and are intended to help students prepare for class.
Once a week, either Monday or Wednesday, students will also turn in five questions or concerns that they’d like to bring up for discussion in class.
Midterm and final exam: 15% each
Format TBD (see section on student choices), but this will not be a traditional, sit-down-and-write-in-class type of exam. It will involve doing some reflection on what you’ve learned, and you’ll be able to use the participation/progress surveys from throughout the quarter to do that.
So just to recap, in terms of what’s due regularly, I’m asking you to turn in a reading reflection each Monday morning, a participation/progress survey every Friday afternoon, and a list of reading questions once a week. Those should all be pretty quick to fill out, though I hope you’ll take all the time you need/want to reflect on the prompts.
Grading
Since this is a seminar and I’d prefer you to have time to focus on understanding the readings and preparing to talk about them in class, we’re going to use more qualitative than quantitative grades. This means that while you will get a letter grade at the end of the quarter, I won’t be grading individual assignments, including your midterm and final. However, I will be giving extensive feedback, and you’ll be reflecting on your own work too – that’s what the participation/progress surveys are for. You will use those to give yourself grades for participation, for preparation, and for your midterm and final; those grades will be the basis of your final grade in the class, with potentially some adjustment from me. We’ll talk through your self-assessment periodically throughout the quarter, and if this method of grading makes you feel anxious or worried, then we’ll figure out something that will work better for you.
Take care of yourself: your health is more important than your grade
Not only are we still in the middle of a pandemic, but also this class will touch on a number of potentially traumatizing topics that may reflect your own experiences. Please don’t forget that your health – both mental and physical – is more important than your grade. If you are feeling sick, please don’t come to class – email me and we’ll figure out how to handle your absence. If a topic is going to be triggering, email me and we’ll figure out how to make room for you.
Class environment
In any class, but especially in a seminar, students and teachers alike need to work together to create an environment where everyone feels that they can share their thoughts and questions safely. Although the instructor is responsible for making sure that we all follow the norms and expectations, defining those expectations, and ultimately the class environment itself, is shared work.
Student choices
I am a new instructor and I’m still trying to figure out who I want to be as a teacher. However, one thing I know for sure is that I want to de-centralize authority in our classroom. I’m not an expert on everything we’re going to talk about, and I’m not an expert in pedagogy, so I won’t pretend to be either of those things. Luckily, you know a lot about your own preferences as students, so I am going to incorporate some opportunities for you to choose how things go in our classroom. In the first week, one of your first assignments will be to vote on some of these classroom elements. I will probably ask these questions another time later in the quarter since your thoughts may change as we go.
Class schedule
Week 1: Introductions and the social and political determinants of health
Class date: March 27
What to do before class:
- Review syllabus
- Fill out pre-class survey
What to expect in class:
- Introductions
- Collaborative creation of classroom norms
Class date: March 29
What to do before class:
- Start tracking down a copy of Oedipus Rex (should be available through the UW libraries but let me know if you’re having a problem finding one!)
- Fill out pre-class survey
- Watch Dr. Camara Jones on metaphors for racism (YouTube)
What to expect in class:
- Lecture (but the only one! I promise!): Introduction to the social and political determinants of health
Week 2: The intersection of anti-Black racism and anti-fatness
Class date: April 3
What to do before class:
- Read Fearing the Black Body, chapters 7, 8, and Epilogue
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Class date: April 5
What to do before class (these are all pretty short readings):
- Read No Health, No Care: The Big Fat Loophole in the Hippocratic Oath (Content note: this reading starts with a brief description of medical assault)
- Read Overlapping Violences: Two excerpts from Belly of the Beast
- Listen to Maintenance Phase podcast episode “Is Being Fat Bad For You?”
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Week 3: American drug policies and structural oppression
Potential readings (nothing set in stone yet!):
Class date: April 10
What to do before class:
- Watch Pro-Drugs VS Anti-Drugs: Can They Find Middle Ground? video
- Watch What is the Drug War? With Jay-Z & Molly Crabapple video
- Watch Penn seminar on Racial Justice in National Drug Policy
- Read Hannah LF Cooper (2015) War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality, Substance Use & Misuse, 50:8-9, 1188-1194, DOI: 3109/10826084.2015.1007669
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Class date: April 12
What to do before class:
- Read Pamplin JR 2nd, Rouhani S, Davis CS, King C, Townsend TN. Persistent Criminalization and Structural Racism in US Drug Policy: The Case of Overdose Good Samaritan Laws. Am J Public Health. 2023;113(S1):S43-S48. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2022.307037
- Read Brian D. Earp, Jonathan Lewis, Carl L. Hart & with Bioethicists and Allied Professionals for Drug Policy Reform(2021) Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs, The American Journal of Bioethics, 21:4, 4-19, DOI: 1080/15265161.2020.1861364
- Read Brandon del Pozo, Leo Beletsky, Jeremiah Goulka & John Kleinig(2021) Beyond Decriminalization: Ending the War on Drugs Requires Recasting Police Discretion through the Lens of a Public Health Ethic, The American Journal of Bioethics, 21:4, 41-44, DOI: 1080/15265161.2021.1891339
What to expect in class:
- Our guest, Adam Pelayew, will talk about his work and research and will teach us how to use naloxone
- Reading discussion
Week 4: Police and state violence
Class date: April 17
What to do before class:
- Read Theall KP, Francois S, Bell CN, Anderson A, Chae D, LaVeist TA. Neighborhood Police Encounters, Health, And Violence In A Southern City. Health Aff (Millwood). 2022;41(2):228-236. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01428
- Read Whittaker. (2019). “Get Off My Property”: A Personal Narrative Addressing Violence Against African Americans by Law Enforcement Post–Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 47(3), 161–171. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmcd.12139
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Class date: April 19
What to do before class:
- Poke around the Stop Cop City website
- Read these three pieces of media coverage on Stop Cop City: Vice, Fox, and NPR
- Read this piece on the concept of “outside agitators”
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Week 5: Merchants of Doubt and Calling Bullshit
Class date: April 24
What to do before class:
- Reading from Calling Bullshit: Prologue; Chapters 1, 2, 3
- Watch lectures 2.1 to 2.5, which total around 35 minutes
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Class date: April 26
What to do before class:
- Watch Merchants of Doubt (we have library access, so the link is on Canvas; it’s about 90 minutes long)
What to expect in class:
- Discussion of Merchants of Doubt
Week 6: COVID
Class date: May 1
What to do before class:
- Read Adam Rogers for Wired: The Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory Is a Tale of Weaponized Uncertainty
- Read Pertwee, E., Simas, C. & Larson, H.J. An epidemic of uncertainty: rumors, conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy. Nat Med28, 456–459 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01728-z
- Read Granados Samayoa, Moore, C. A., Ruisch, B. C., Boggs, S. T., Ladanyi, J. T., & Fazio, R. H. (2022). A gateway conspiracy? Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories prospectively predicts greater conspiracist ideation. PloS One, 17(10), e0275502–e0275502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275502
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Class date: May 3
What to do before class:
- Read NYT on COVID deaths in prisons (Feb. 2023): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/19/us/covid-prison-deaths.html
- Read Solomon TGA, Starks RRB, Attakai A, et al. The Generational Impact Of Racism On Health: Voices From American Indian Communities. Health Aff (Millwood). 2022;41(2):281-288. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01419
- Read Dying in a Leadership Vacuum, from the New England Journal of Medicine editors
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Week 7: COVID, the AAPI experience, and Oedipus Rex
Class date: May 8
- Read Fan CA. Beyond #StopAAPIHate: Expanding the Definition of Violence Against Asian Americans. Am J Public Health. 2022;112(4):604-606. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2022.306740
- Read Hardy LJ, Mana A, Mundell L, Neuman M, Benheim S, Otenyo E. Who is to blame for COVID-19? Examining politicized fear and health behavior through a mixed methods study in the United States. PLoS One. 2021;16(9):e0256136. Published 2021 Sep 1. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256136
- Get started with Oedipus Rex
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion with guest Carolyn Fan, author of the first listed reading
Class date: May 10
What to do before class:
- Finish Oedipus Rex
What to expect in class:
- Reading discussion
Week 8: Capitalism, illness, and disability
Potential readings (nothing set in stone yet!):
- Ne'eman A, Bell E, Schneider MC, Strolovitch D. Identifying And Exploring Bias In Public Opinion On Scarce Resource Allocation During The COVID-19 Pandemic. Health Aff (Millwood). 2022;41(10):1513-1522. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00504
- Selections from Capitalism and Disability, Martha Russell
- Carey, A. C. (2009). On the Margins of Citizenship: Intellectual Disability and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America. Temple University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bs8th
- (2019). Eugenic Visuality: Racist Epistemologies from Galton to “The Bell Curve.” Amerikastudien, 64(2), 215–240. https://doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2019/2/6
- (2009). From Fictive Ability to National Identity: Disability, Medical Inspection, and Public Health Regulations on Ellis Island. Cultural Critique, 72(72), 137–163. https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.0.0043
- (2015). Disability Studies Gets Fat. Hypatia, 30(1), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12126
- Bovo MV. 'Long COVID': Making The Invisible Visible. Health Aff (Millwood). 2021;40(9):1510-1513. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2021.00166
Class date: May 15
What to do before class:
What to expect in class:
Class date: May 17
What to do before class:
What to expect in class:
Week 9: Violence and stigma against LGBTQ+ people
Potential readings (nothing set in stone yet!):
- Picano, Felice. "The remains of the night: six Observers: Felice Picano talks with eyewitnesses to the Stonewall Riots." The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, vol. 22, no. 4, July-Aug. 2015, pp. 29+.
- Rachele Girardi (2022) ‘It’s easy to mistrust police when they keep on killing us’: A queer exploration of police violence and LGBTQ+ Victimization, Journal of Gender Studies, 31:7, 852-862, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2021.1979481
- Jarrett, Peitzmeier, S. M., Restar, A., Adamson, T., Howell, S., Baral, S., & Beckham, S. W. (2021). Gender-affirming care, mental health, and economic stability in the time of COVID-19: A multi-national, cross-sectional study of transgender and nonbinary people. PloS One, 16(7), e0254215–e0254215. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254215
- Lett, E., Abrams, M.P., Gold, A. et al. Ethnoracial inequities in access to gender-affirming mental health care and psychological distress among transgender adults. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 57, 963–971 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02246-6
- White Hughto JM, Reisner SL, Pachankis JE. Transgender stigma and health: A critical review of stigma determinants, mechanisms, and interventions. Soc Sci Med. 2015 Dec;147:222-31. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.11.010. Epub 2015 Nov 11. PMID: 26599625; PMCID: PMC4689648.
Class date: May 22
What to do before class:
What to expect in class:
Class date: May 24
What to do before class:
What to expect in class:
Week 10: Final projects and/or student choice of topics
Class activities TBD, depending on student choices!
Week of June 3: finals week; no class