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Jonathan Ablard

Assistant Professor

History
School of Humanities and Sciences
Graduate Study in Education
Latin American Studies

Disease and Health in Latin America

“Disease and Health in Modern Latin America”

HIST 386/ Fall 2008

James J. Whalen Center 2201

10:50am-12:05pm

Jonathan D. Ablard

Muller 403

jablard@ithaca.edu

607-274-3558

Office Hours: Monday 9-11am, Thursday 3-4pm, and by appointment

Learning Objectives and Course Outcomes

In the last decade, there has been a tremendous growth in historical scholarship on topics relating to disease and health in Latin America. Influenced by the growing field of the social history of medicine, many of these works challenge assumptions about the motives, design and implementation of public health initiatives since the period of early independence. Scholars have demonstrated that popular and professional notions of health and illness were not static but changed over time in response to an array of social, political and economic forces. By the late nineteenth-century, health and disease had transcended biological categories, and were frequently discussed within broader discussions about racial degeneration, gender norms, sexuality, immigration, and political disorder.

This course has four major goals that are inspired by this new and dynamic body of literature. First, students will develop an historical awareness of the political and social dimensions of disease and health in Latin America. Second, students will gain insight into how the disease and health reflect broader political and economic developments in Latin America. Third, we will examine how interactions between medical practitioners and their clients have shaped public health policy in Latin America, perceptions of what constitutes “ill-health,” and notions of race, class and gender. Finally, students will develop a global perspective not just on issues of health and disease, but also economic, racial, and social inequality (at the local, national and international levels).

While much is not covered in this class because of the limitations of time, I expect students to take the initiative to explore geographic areas and health issues that are not covered by the readings. In both presentations and in your final research paper, you will have the opportunity to do this.

In broader terms, this course seeks to foster improvement in the following areas of students’ academic life: 1) ability to integrate history with other disciplines, including biology, epidemiology, public health, sociology 2) improvement in written and oral communication 3) ability to conceptualize research questions and to find the relevant source materials 4) willingness to take ownership in how the class is taught and what we learn.

To the extent that students take ownership of the class and the learning process, I will gladly modify assignments. In this respect, you should think of this class as one that has the potential to take on the characteristics of an anarchist collective where responsibilities and rights are evenly distributed. See Murray Bookchin’s essay on Francisco Ferrer

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/scw/ferrer.htm

Required Books

Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana (on reserve)

Shawn Smallman, The AIDS Pandemic in Latin America (on reserve)

Tracy Kidder, Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer (Random House)

Cristina Rivera-Garza, No one will see me cry (on reserve)

Julyan Peard, Race, Place, and Medicine: The Idea of the Tropics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Films of Interest:

Motorcycle Diaries (life of Che Guevara, social medicine, health conditions)

Carandiru (AIDS, sexuality, prison populations, social medicine)

Man Facing Southeast (psychiatry, mental illness, political context of health care)

Websites of Interest

American Journal of Public Health

http://www.ajph.org/

Harvard World Health News

http://www.worldhealthnews.harvard.edu/

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/

Pan-American Health Organization

http://www.paho.org/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

http://www.cdc.gov/

Ithaca Health Alliance

http://www.ithacahealth.org/

Department of Human Ecology, Cornell U.

http://www.human.cornell.edu/

Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health

http://www.jhsph.edu/

Columbia University School of Public Health

http://www.mailman.hs.columbia.edu/

Steve Volk, Oberlin College, Latin American History Website

http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/latinam.htm

Assignments

Review of Tracy Kidder’s Mountain over Mountain (5%) In two pages provide a thoughtful reflection about the major themes, challenges, and problems with this book. You are free to focus on a particular issue in the book. Do not simply tell me that you liked or disliked the book.

Book Reviews (20%)

Write a three page review of two of the assigned books from the course (except Kidder). Situate the books into the broader framework of the courses’ readings and discussions and explore ONE major theme that the book explores. This is an open-ended assignment so you have to decide what the question is that you wish to answer.

Mid Term (20%)

Take home exam. This is a major writing assignment in which you must demonstrate mastery of the assigned material. The questions will be distributed well in advance of the due date and you will be expected to be working on this paper throughout the first half of the semester. You must demonstrate a mastery of the course materials

Class Room Discussion (10%)

Students in groups of two or three will be in charge of facilitating discussion during one class session. In addition to demonstrating mastery of the day’s assignment, you are expected to connect the reading to earlier assignments, to demonstrated creativity in leading discussion, etc. As part of the assignment, you will be required to bring in one external source. It can be a clip from a film, a news story that connects history to the present, or a primary source from the era under question. Students will also write a response paper where they will address critical issues from the day’s readings. (3 pages)

Research Project (30%)

Students will organize themselves into groups of between 3-5 students according to similar interests. One group might coalesce around a common interest in public health systems, another around mental health, and another around the history of health in a particular country. Each student will then develop a research project that reflects their own particular area of interest within the broader topic. You will meet periodically to offer support, encouragement, and to share sources. By the end of the semester, you will have two graded assignments:

Group Presentation to Class (10%): Members of the Ithaca College community will be invited to these presentations which may be held out of class time. Rather than a series of separate presentations, students will develop a presentation that pulls together the various strands of research. Part of the presentation must incorporate a Health Practitioner Interview, for which students will contact and conduct interview with a health practitioner who works in a field that is of possible research interest. After conducting the interview, students will write a brief summary of the important points of the interview and present to the class.

Research Paper (20%): Each student will write a12-15 page research paper which addresses a health-related historical topic. Depending on source availability (and language barriers), students are encouraged to look for comparative or historiographic approaches.

Final Exam (15%) See Mid-Term

Participation: This is not an explicit part of the grade as I assume that you are in this class because it interests you. Moreover, I have generally found that those students who do not actively participate in class do not perform well on written assignments. If you consistently come to class unprepared please expect to be asked to explain yourself to the class as a whole as your non-participation has a negative impact on the ability of everyone to teach and learn.

CLASSROOM POLICIES

Students who miss more than two weeks of class will be dropped from the roll unless you have a valid excuse
Response papers must be handed in during class on the date indicated.
This course follows the Ithaca College policy on Academic Honesty. Students found to be in violation of this policy will be expelled from the class, will receive a failing grade and will have their name reported to the appropriate college authorities. The policy reads as follows: “Academic honesty is a cornerstone of the mission of the College. Unless it is otherwise stipulated, students may submit for evaluation only that work that is their own and that is submitted originally for a specific course. According to traditions of higher education, forms of conduct that will be considered evidence of academic misconduct include but are not limited to the following: conversations between students during an examination; reviewing, without authorization, material during an examination (e.g., personal notes, another student's exam); unauthorized collaboration; submission of a paper also submitted for credit in another course; reference to written material related to the course brought into an examination room during a closed-book, written examination; and submission without proper acknowledgment of work that is based partially or entirely on the ideas or writings of others. Only when a faculty member gives prior approval for such actions can they be acceptable.”

-Article 7.1.4. Ithaca College Policy Manual

4. Students and faculty will treat each with respect and collegiality in the classroom. Cell phones and any other electronic devices must be put away before coming to class. Do not bring food to class unless you have enough for everyone.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week One

8/28 How and why historians study disease and health?

Week Two: Contemporary Issues

9/2 Becoming American (film)

9/4 Tracey Kidder, Mountain over Mountain

* Kidder Essay Assignment Due in Class

Week Three

* Donna Smith from Sicko Textor 103 at 7pm on 9/8

9/9 Disease and Health in Colonial Latin America

Recommended:

Sherry Fields, Pestilence and Head Colds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico @ http://www.gutenberg-e.org/fields/chapter1.html

& and Karol Kovalovich Weaver, “The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2002) (Project MUSE)

9/11 Fenn, Pox Americana

Week Four: Drinking and Suicide

9/16 William Taylor “Drinking” in Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (In reader)

Presenters: Zdan and Schoch

9/18 Louis Perez, To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society (In reader)

Presenters: Biringer and Laughney

Week Five: Social and Political Aspects of Disease

9/23 Sandra Lauderdale Graham, “Contagion and Control,” in House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth Century Rio de Janiero (Texas) (In Reader)

Recommended:

Sidney Chalhoub, “The Politics of Disease Control: Yellow Fever and Race in Nineteenth Century Rio de Janeiro,” JLAS (1993). (JSTOR) & Greg Grandin, “A Pestilent Nationalism: The 1837 Cholera Epidemic Reconsidered” in The Blood of Guatemala (Duke, 2000)

Presenters: Sarcone and Connolly

9/25 Joao Jose Reis, “Death to the Cemetery: Funerary Reform and Rebellion in Salvador, Brazil, 1836,” in Arrom and Ortoll, Riots in the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in Latin America, 1765-1910 (SR Books, 1996) (In Reader)

Recommended:

Martina Will, Death and Dying in New Mexico (University of New Mexico Press)

Presenters: Kufta and Giblin

Week Six: Contemporary Public health and “Degeneration”

9/30 Mary Bentley, Chair of Health Promotion and Physical Education, IC

10/2 Dain Borges, “’Puffy, Ugly, Slothful and Inert’: Degeneration in Brazilian Social Thought, 1880-1940,” JLAS (1993) (JSTOR)

Eduardo Zimmermann, “Racial Ideas and Social Reform: Argentina, 1890-1916,” Hispanic American Historical Review 72:1 (1992): 23-46 (JSTOR)

Presenters: Fowkes and Grimes

Week Seven: Degeneration and Latin American Medicine

10/7 Horacio Quiroga, “The Decapitated Chicken,” Da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands, Junot Diaz, Drown with Bruce Henderson, Speech Communication, IC

10/9 Julyan Peard, Race, Place, and Medicine: The Idea of the Tropics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Week Eight

10/14 MID TERM EXAMINATION DUE

Week Nine: Prostitution and Public Health

10/21 Select Two of the following:

David McCreery, “’This life of misery and shame:’ female prostitution in Guatemala City, 1880-1920,” JLAS (November 1986) (JSTOR)

Katherine Bliss, “The Science of Redemption: Syphilis, Sexual Promiscuity, and Reformism in Revolutionary Mexico City,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79:1 (February 1999) (JSTOR)

Donna Guy, “White Slavery, Public Health, and the Socialist Position on Legalized Prostitution in Argentina, 1913-1936,” Latin American Research Review 23:3 (1988): 60-80. (JSTOR)

And

Donna Guy, “Medical Imperialism Gone Awry: The Campaign Against Legalized

Prostitution in Latin America,” in Meade and Walker, editors. Science, Medicine and Cultural Imperialism (St. Martin’s Press). (In Reader)

Recommended: Alexandra Minna Stern, “Buildings, Boundaries, and Blood: Medicalization and Nation-Building on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1910-1930,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79:1 (February 1999). (JSTOR) & Jorge Salessi, “The Argentine Dissemination of Homosexuality, 1890-1914,” Journal of the History of Sexuality (1994) (JSTOR)

Presenters: Pangburn and Zenger O’Brien

10/23 A United States Perspective on the History of Prostitution with Vivian Bruce Conger, Department of History, IC

Week Ten

10/28 A brief History of Psychiatry: Methodological, Archival, and Ethical Challenges

Start reading Cristina Rivera-Garza, No one will see me cry

Optional read: Ana Maria G. Raimundo Oda, Claudio Eduardo M. Banzato, and Paulo Dalgalorrondo, “Some origins of cross-cultural psychiatry,” History of Psychiatry 16:2 (2005): 155-69. (In Reader)