Liberal Studies Seminars

The purpose of this course is to examine the final two stages of life—old age and death—using a  biopsychosocial perspective.  We will study the social, emotional, and biomedical changes during these stages and try to better understand the American desire to live as long as possible while delaying death. Although we will examine real-life data on these topics, the focus of the course is to see how these biopsychosocial phenomena are represented in fiction, with emphasis on their presence in novels and popular film.  The course is divided into several subsections.  These will include “Theories of Aging and Death,” “Gender in Aging and Death,” “Physical and Cognitive Decline in Aging” and “Extending Life by Preventing Death.”

We will document real-life issues of aging and death through an examination of the age structures of developed and developing nations, focusing on the meaning of an aging population for the future of the U.S.  As most deaths in the US occur in older people, it is important to link these two phenomena on both a theoretical and pragmatic bases.  Keeping the themes of aging and death as constants over the semester, we will examine issues of retirement, relationships and love in late life and among the dying, off-time death, and modern medical intervention with dying patients. We will also discuss institutional differences (i.e., between nursing homes for aging and hospice for dying) and what twenty-first century America must do to prepare for the soon-to-be old and dying baby boomers.  Students will each write a final research paper on a topic discussed during the class.

*Monday classes in the summer semester will begin on Wednesday, May 15, to accommodate the May 27 Memorial Day holiday.

The Arctic and the Amazon are only recently explored, mapped, and affected by the economic, social, and ecological forces associated with modernity.  They have many things in common, including an often inaccurate treatment in popular literature and films, sensitive environments disproportionately affected by global change, recent penetration of even the most remote regions by highways and seaways; new interest by outside economic actors in resource development, and small groups of indigenous people trying to obtain decision-making authority and protect traditional cultures and people/land relationships.

The course will interrogate how several disciplines deal with the past, present, and future of these important mega-regions, including history, literature, anthropology, political economy and economics, ecology and conservative biology, and public policy studies.

1. Heroic exploration narratives—not that long ago—Theodore Roosevelt in River of Doubt; Arctic exploration narratives of Fritjob Nansen, accounts of the Franklin expedition, George DeLong’s Jeanette expedition and others;
2. Literary works with a strong sense of place.  For example, David Gramm’s The Lost City of Z or Kim Leine’s Prophets of the Eternal Fjord (18^th century Greenland);
3. Relatively small numbers of scattered indigenous groups that are struggling for sovereignty over land and resources and to hold on to traditional ways of life;

1. historical encounters between indigenous people and Europeans; Canadian Film Board film Pangnirtung; exploitation of rubber tappers;
2. groups exhibiting agency rather than victimhood (Kayapo and Xingu; Choci Mendes and rubber tappers; Arctic Native Claims Settlement Act; Matthew Coon Come and the James Bay Cree); links with national and international environmental groups;

4.    Potential for mineral development (oil and gas, metals); water and dams in Amazonia; agriculture and forest plantations; fisheries in Arctic seas and Amazonian rivers;

5.    Biodiversity—extremely high in Amazonia; extremely low in Arctic.  Concentration of nutrients (in vegetation in Amazon) in waters and under the ice in Arctic.  Emblematic life forms—the polar bear and the jaguar;

6.    Multiple nations involved—six in Amazon basin; six in Arctic.  Scores of subnational governments and stakeholders;

7.    Historically colonial relationship to outside authority—core and periphery; decolonialization;

8.    Relation of local groups to national and international NGOs in seeking to confirm or protect management and use rights;

9.    Role of tourism/ecotourism as both a threat to the environment and a possible income source for local people;

10.  Designation and management of protected areas; type of areas and implementation experience;

11.       Present and future impacts of climate change—warming and ice melt in Arctic; drought and fire in Amazon; impacts on local people; impacts on world climate system; policy alternatives.

*New Course*

In ancient times, midwives traditionally worked with families from ‘womb to tomb,’ bringing in new life and laying out the dead. They saw living and dying as opposing aspects of the same cycle. The two were of equal importance, as two passages through the same door: one coming in, the other going out. Midwives were as intimately involved in every manifestation of death as they were in those of life. Midwives traditionally supported and taught the dying, and cradled the corpse as well as the infant, each to its own particular new life.--Carol Leonard

We often think of birth and death as “natural” events that take place outside of any politics or ideology.  This class argues that the processes of birth and death are managed by several competing institutions, and that most of the practices overlook what have been thought of as traditionally women’s roles.  These institutions—science, medicine, and religion—do not intend to usurp women’s work; they are simply fulfilling their mandate: goals of progress, cleanliness, and modernity, inadvertently (?) hide the power of these institutions from public view.  Thus, at the beginning of the 21^st century, we know very little about what actually happens during these two important life events, birth and death.

Nowhere is this dilemma more salient than in the questions of birth and maternal-infant health.  Despite the fact that prenatal care and birth are well covered by public and private funds, the United States ranks among the lowest of industrialized nations in terms of mother/child health.  Lack of adequate prenatal care, coupled with overuse of medical interventions, have doubled the rate of maternal death over the last 20 years.  In the face of these problems, many health care professionals are turning to a midwifery model of care in order to try to reduce maternal death and increase infant health. The first section of the course covers the changes in birth practices over the last sixty years.  Once we moved to a hospital setting, it became much harder for birth practitioners to view birth as something “normal.”  In this section we will review the many reasons why this is the case.  We will also investigate the question of whether or not the medical model should dominate or even influence the birth process.  Many midwives believe that medicine has developed important interventions to help birth along; these interventions, they argue, should be “at the ready” and used whenever things even look like they could potentially go wrong.  Midwives in this tradition are called Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM); they are trained nurses who specialize in birth.  Conversely, Certified Professional Midwives (CPM) do not require a nursing degree and do not follow a medical model for the birthing process.  Helping a woman give birth, they argue, is a matter of offering comfort, support, massage, food, entertainment, time.  A woman’s body knows how to give birth, these midwives suggest, and they are present to support this process, not control it.  CPM’s are illegal in 23 states, including North Carolina.  CPM’s caught performing a homebirth in any of these 23 states are prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license.

            The second issue investigated in this class is the event of death.  100 years ago the vast majority of Americans died at home surrounded by family and loved ones.  Today, the vast majority of Americans die alone in a hospital, surrounded by machines.  Moreover, a gap between when a person dies and when the family thinks they are dead can become very wide; i.e., the definition of death is not always clear.  Meanwhile, “hospice” (which was founded in England a century ago by midwife Cicely Saunders), is a practice that tries to close this gap; once a person is within six months of dying, hospice advocates discontinue all treatments, giving palliative care (pain relief), along with a midwifery model of support.  Each dying person has a team that works with them to make sure they are comfortable and have everything they need.  Hospice has many problems, though.  Its rules vary from state to state and, because it is composed mostly of volunteers, it varies even within a state.  It is often difficult to determine when a person is six months from death, so in many cases, hospice enters too late.  The midwifery model even extends beyond death to the care of the body.  How is a corpse dealt with and who gets to decide that?  Family?  Religious leaders?  Lawmakers?  Land developers? 

            No one is discrediting the great advantages medicine has brought to our world, even or especially at birth and death.  What this class is arguing for is a conversation that tries to recover some of the best practices of earlier or more female centered models of care. “Interpreting Bodies” revisits the discourse of midwifery, which argues that the processes of birth and death are not illnesses that need to be cured, but rather are normal and natural events in the course of a life.  Instead of using drugs and technology to manage these events, midwifery seeks the path of “being with” the patient through these changes, and only using drugs or technology to assist a natural transition.  What is this process of “being with” and how does it differ from the ways we are treated in medical settings today? 

Evaluation

Paper 1: Explain why hospital births are standard care in America.  Is the material around midwifery persuasive to you and if it is, why is it still thought of as outmoded and old-fashioned.  If you support hospital births, explain why they are thought of as best practice, and for whom.  5–10 pages 30%

Paper 2: What assumptions are circulating in medical and religious language that block the idea of a good death?  Or using two sources from outside class, explain why green deaths may or (may not) become the wave of the future 5–10 pages 40%

The remaining 30% will be based on your attendance, participation, and general presence toward course material.

Please, no electronic devices in this class.

Book List

Section One: Midwives of Birth

Ladies Hands, Lion’s Heart, Carol Leonard

Cut it Out, Theresa Morris

Section Two: Midwives of Death

Being Mortal, Atul Gawande

Greening Death,  Suzanne Kelly

*New Course*

The goal of this class is to survey different approaches to ethical thinking in relation to non-human animals and their dilemmas.  In the world named but not captured by the term “animal rights,” philosophical, ethical, and legal theories once sanctioned for use only in relation to humans are now being applied to animals with a varying array of outcomes and conclusions.  This course will examine different strategies of animal advocacy as they are manifested in Kantianism, contract based theories, utilitarianism, welfarism.  The animal advocacy movement is filled with activists, philosophers, political theorists, feminists, lawyers, and representatives of many different intellectual traditions who disagree about the status of animals, about whether or not we should eat them or wear them or hunt them or train them for entertainment or keep them in our homes.  We’ll investigate these conflicts throughout this class by looking at the narratives of particular kinds of animals.  While certain forms of public rhetoric may promote an idea that animal advocacy is a seamless, all-or-nothing, rights-based, vegan agenda, this class presumes there are many acceptable positions in relation to non-human animals.  While what happens to animals beyond the scope of our vision—at the factory farm, the slaughterhouse, the dog pound, the circus, or the research lab—may indeed be unethical, this class presumes that there are many different ways to formulate moral solutions.  Class discussion will focus on novels and memoirs to open our thinking on ethical frameworks for animals.

Booklist:

Pack of Two

Making Rounds with Oscar

Cat Wars

Eating Animals

Love at Goon Park

Evaluation:

Attendance and participation 25%

3-5 page opinion piece about each book and the problems that surround the subject 50%

Expanding ONE paper to 10 pages for final paper 25%