HIST 282 - Women Healing and Medicine in Early Amer

3 Hour(s)

This course explores women’s historical roles as healers, patients, and subjects of medical inquiry from the colonial period through the mid-nineteenth century. It examines key topics such as medical views of gender and the reproductive body; women’s roles as healers in their families and communities; women’s roles as patients and practitioners during pregnancy and childbirth; and women’s experiences as patients and healers in the context of slavery. In approaching these topics, this course analyzes the ways in which ideas about gender, race, class, and sexuality intersected to shape perceptions of women’s bodies and of health and healing and to shape the experiences of women as patients and practitioners. Students will learn to think about histories of healing and medicine as embedded in the broader social and cultural contexts that shape people’s lives.

General Education Requirements: Gender Inquiry; Writing Intensive