Document Type
Syllabus
Publication Date
Fall 2024
Course Description
Should people with HIV/AIDS be legally required to wear a tattoo showing their status? You may be shocked that this question was ever seriously discussed by lawmakers in the United States. How has the stigma of HIV/AIDS and HCV affected the experience of people with it as well as public and health care responses? Has criminalizing substance use disorder (as we have done since the 1980s “Drug War”) worked? What is harm reduction? How might a harm reduction approach be a better approach to these issues? This course will challenge you to think critically about these issues in a way that you have likely not considered before. In this course, we will use a socio-cultural approach to understand HIV/AIDS, HCV, and the opioid epidemic with a specific focus on the United States. We will use a sociological and historical frame to explore the rise of patients and people who use drugs as activists/experts, the role of sexual and religious politics and moralism, and public health versus criminal approaches. The role of public sentiment in perpetuating stigma and discrimination towards these issues is a prevalent theme in the course. For example, how does race, class, gender, and sexual identity shape the changing meanings, experiences, and public/political responses? A course goal is for students to understand the role of how social structure and culture affect the construction of these issues. We will also focus on the role of social movements, such as ACT UP in the 1980s regarding HIV/AIDS, that have affected change specifically amongst affected people. In this spirit, we will participate in social justice work around these topics. We will do some volunteer work with local organizations and have speakers join our class. This will also provide a glimpse into how non-profit organizations function and center the voices of people with lived experiences. Finally, we will sponsor an awareness campaign on campus for World AIDS Day in December.
Recommended Citation
Suarez, Alicia, "FYS: Harm Reduction: HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and the Opioid Epidemic Suarez Fall 2024" (2024). All Course Syllabi. 833, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/records_syllabi/833
Student Outcomes
Students will be able to: Understand what harm reduction is and is not. Learn how medical, legal, and public sentiments regarding sexual politics and drug use affects approaches to medical and social issues. Learn how medical, legal, and public sentiments affect lived experiences with HIV/AIDS, HCV, and people who use drugs. Identify and analyze strategies and activism that individuals and organizations have used in the past and can develop in the future to address and ameliorate social injustice. Grow their writing skills including critical thinking skills, writing literature reviews of scholarly data, citing sources, and how writing is a process