Critical Social Inquiry 0256 - Creating Families

Fall
2018
1
4.00
Marlene Fried;Pamela Stone
12:30PM-01:50PM TU;12:30PM-01:50PM TH
Hampshire College
327428
Franklin Patterson Hall 101;Franklin Patterson Hall 101
mgfSS@hampshire.edu;pksNS@hampshire.edu
This course will investigate the roles of law, culture and technology in creating and re-defining families. We will focus on the ways in which systems of reproduction reinforce and/or challenge inequalities of class, race and gender. We will examine the issues of entitlement to parenthood, domestic and international adoption, surrogacy, birthing and parenting for people in prison, and the uses, consequences and ethics of new reproductive technologies designed to help people give birth to biologically-related children. Questions to be addressed include: How does a person's status affect their relation to reproductive alternatives? What is the relationship between state reproductive policies and actual practices, legal, contested, and clandestine, that develop around these policies? How are notions of family and parenting enacted and transformed in an arena that is transnational, interracial, intercultural, and cross-class?
Power, Community and Social Justice Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research Students are expected to spend 6-8 hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.
Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.