STS 284 - The Transplanted Body

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Organ transplantation has had a profound influence not only on medicine and medical ethics, but also on definitions of the self, configurations of the body, the boundaries of life and death, and the nature of gifts and commodities. This course focuses on the meanings and realities of the transplanted body. We explore the ethics of donation and organ markets, property rights and the body, xenotransplantation, and regenerative medicine. We also discover the rich vein of fictive, folkloric, anthropological, and historical texts, films, and paintings that represent the surgical act of tissue transfer and explore the metaphorical and aesthetic possibilities it contains. We see how these representations resonate with the legal, philosophical, and bioethical essays we read. Throughout the semester, we map out the transplanted body as something both real and symbolic, based in medical history, but also mythology. Eric Trump.

Two 75-minute periods.