Critical Social Inquiry 0271 - Creating Families: Law, Culture and Technology

Creating Families

Fall
2020
1
4.00
Marlene Fried;Pamela Stone
01:00PM-02:20PM TU;01:00PM-02:20PM TH
Hampshire College
332565
;
mgfSS@hampshire.edu;pksNS@hampshire.edu
This course investigates the roles of law, culture and technology in creating and re-defining families. We focus on the ways in which systems of reproduction reinforce and/or challenge inequalities of class, race and gender. We 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: What is family? 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? Key Words: Creating families, reproductive technologies, family, adoption, surrogacy, critical social inquiry Theme: In/Justice
In/Justice This course is fully remote. Students are expected to spend 6-8 hours on work and preparation outside of class time.
Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.