Universität Wien

240529 SE Human Betterment Utopias (P4) (2023S)

Eugenic ideas and concepts from the political left and the political right

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Participation at first session is obligatory!

The lecturer can invite students to a grade-relevant discussion about partial achievements. Partial achievements that are obtained by fraud or plagiarized result in the non-evaluation of the course (entry 'X' in certificate). The plagiarism software 'Turnitin' will be used for courses with continuous assessment.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

The course will be conducted in presence. Due to the respective applicable distance regulations and other measures, adjustments may be made.

  • Wednesday 15.03. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 29.03. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 19.04. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 03.05. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 10.05. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 17.05. 09:00 - 13:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Eugenic ideas indicate virtues of “proper” and “improper” reproductiveness of “proper” and “improper” women – thus indicating socially desired and undesired human life. In the course of the 20th century new medical methods and treatments try to implement eugenic ideas through prevention or encouragement of births. The original purpose underlying the exceeding development of recent reproductive technologies was not the idea of helping infertility, but the attempt for “commanding” human reproduction more “efficiently”. In this sense of “efficiency” it was implicitly intended to encourage some women to have children while on the other hand some other women should renounce.
Methods: Input, presentation (group work), final paper (group work), discussions

Assessment and permitted materials

To finish the seminar successfully:
group-presentation + handout + paper + compulsory attendance
Aids permitted: all books, articles, and documents on moodle
1) presentation + handout (group work!): 40 points
2) term paper (group work): 30 points
3) participate actively during the seminar blocks + compulsory attendance: 30 points

In order to receive a passing grade, you need at least 50 points and at least half the points of each partial performance (1-3).
sehr gut: 88-100 Punkte
gut: 75-87 Punkte
befriedigend: 62-74 Punkte
genügend: 50-61 Punkte
nicht genügend: 0-49 Punkte

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

To finish the seminar successfully:
group-presentation + handout + paper + compulsory attendance
Aids permitted: all books, articles, and documents on moodle
1) presentation + handout (group work!): 40 points
2) term paper (group work): 30 points
3) participate actively during the seminar blocks + compulsory attendance: 30 points

In order to receive a passing grade, you need at least 50 points and at least half the points of each partial performance (1-3).
sehr gut: 88-100 Punkte
gut: 75-87 Punkte
befriedigend: 62-74 Punkte
genügend: 50-61 Punkte
nicht genügend: 0-49 Punkte

Examination topics

see Assessment & Minimum requirements and assessment criteria:

Reading list

-Allen, Ann Taylor. 1985. Mothers of the New Generation: Adele Schreiber, Helene Stöcker, and the Evolution of a German Idea of Motherhood, 1900-1914, Signs, Vol. 10, No. 3: 418-438.
-Bestard, Joan. 2004. Kinship and New Genetics: The Changing Meaning of Biogenetic Substance, in Social Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 3: 253-263.
-Braun, Kathrin (Hg.). 2011. Between Self-Determination and Social Technology. Medicine, Biopolitics and the New Techniques of Procedural Management. Bielefeld: transcript.
-Dyck, José van. 1995. Manufacturing Babies and Public Consent. Debating the New Reproductive Technologies. London/Basingstoke: Macmillan.
-Franklin, Sarah. 2013. Biological Relatives. IVF, Stem Cells and the Future of Kinship. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
-Franklin, Sarah. 2003. Re-thinking nature-culture: Anthropology and the new genetics, in Anthropological Theory, 3: 65-85.
-Lock, Margaret. 2012. From Genetics to Postgenomics and the Discovery of the New Social Body, in Inhorn, Marcia C./ Wentzell, Emily A. (Hg.): Medical Anthropology at the Intersections. Histories, Activisms, and Futures. Durham and London: Duke University Press: 129-160.
-Lorenz, Maren. 2008. Proto-Eugenic Thought and Breeding Utopias in The United States before 1870, in GHI Bulletin, No. 43: 67-90.
-MacKellar, Calum/Bechtel, Christopher (Hg.). 2016. The Ethics of the New Eugenics. New York: Berghahn.
-Mesner, Maria/Wolfgruber, Gudrun (Hg.): The Policies of Reproduction at the Turn of the 21st Century. The Cases of Finland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Austria and the US. Innsbruck: Studienverlag.
-Muller, Hermann Joseph. 1939. The Geneticists Manifesto or Social Biology and Population Improvement.
-Rapp, Rayna. 2001. Gender, Body, Biomedicine: How Some Feminist Concerns Dragged Reproduction to the Center of Social Theory, in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 4: 466-477.
-Richardson, Angelique. 2003. Love and eugenics in the late nineteenth century: rational reproduction and the new woman, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-Samerski, Silja. 2009. Genetic Counseling and the Fiction of Choice: Taught Self‐Determination as a New Technique of Social Engineering, in Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 34, No. 4: 735-761.
-Wecker, Regina/Braunschweig, Sabine/Imboden, Gabriela/Küchenhoff, Bernhard/Ritter, Hans Jakob (Hg.): Wie nationalsozialistisch ist die Eugenik? What is National Socialist about Eugenics? Internationale Debatten zur Geschichte der Eugenik im 20. Jahrhundert. International Debates on the History of Eugenics in the 20th Century. Wien, Köln, Weimar.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Su 05.03.2023 13:48