Module: 1
Sponsoring Program: Graduate Studies
Administrator: D'Anne Duncan

STUDY LIST INFORMATION
Course Number: GRAD 219
Course Name: Abolishing the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC) (Special topics in racism and social justice)
Units: 3
Grading Option: S/U
Course Director: D'Anne Duncan

MORE COURSE INFORMATION
Co-director: Fabian Fernandez
Dates: March 28 - April 15
Location: Zoom (Details for zoom will be sent to registered students by director/administrator)
Schedule: TBD
Maximum Class Size: 15


Course Description: ‘Abolishing the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC)’ is a mini-course dedicated to a ‘crip of color’ critique of the medical system using short videos, podcasts, academic writing, and speculative fiction to expand the horizon of what is possible. Each of the six sessions explores a different axis of the MIC (see image below) with special attention to the impacts of COVID-19. In our class on Bio-colonialism we explore the historical expansion of medicine and public health, reflecting on the racialized structuring of labor in healthcare and the ongoing vaccine apartheid. In our class on Ableism/Access we reflect on the principles of Disability Justice before turning to the state-sanctioned debility of ‘long-COVID’ and proposals for #ICUgenics that disproportionately impact racialized people. In our class on Health/Desirability we think about the ways that healing traditionally excluded from biomedicine is being re-appropriated by a growing wellness industry. In our class on Population Control we think about the ways medical policing, institutionalization/incarceration, and techno-fixes serve to manage racialized peoples in medicine. In our final class we will reflect on the ways our family histories and experiences intersect with the MIC in ways that disrupt, challenge, and work towards a more visionary approach to health and wellbeing.