AMST 359 - Who Cares?

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

The ongoing care crisis in America reveals major gaps and obstacles between care needs and care provision. How can we make care more affordable and accessible? Can the provision of care be socially organized in a different way? How do we ensure safe conditions where those who provide care can work with dignity? What exactly is care in the first place? This undergraduate seminar seeks to tease out the changing ways care has been theoretically defined over time as well as its unequal provision through empirical studies. We draw on feminist care ethics, sociology of labor, and political theory to explore histories of domestic work, the wages for housework campaign, economics of childcare and eldercare, living with disabilities at home, politics of maternal health, veteran’s benefits, and transnational surrogacy among others. Students have the opportunity to make a care plan for a loved one. This entails interviewing their loved one about their needs, creating a budget that accounts for where they want to be cared for long-term, and reviewing federal and state policies to attain affordable care. Students gain an understanding of the current infrastructure that primary caregivers need to navigate in attaining quality and sustained care while refining what we collectively mean by care. Amy Chin.

Prerequisite(s): Permission of the Director of the American Studies Program.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS