Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
Emerging Diseases: Global Challenges to Human Health
Instructor(s): Michael Ennis-McMillan, Anthropology
Recent outbreaks of new and re-emerging diseases, including AIDS, Ebola, tuberculosis,
and cholera, have challenged the ways we think about biological and social factors
that cause human suffering. In this seminar, students approach disease from several
perspectives, integrating public health, environmental studies, and medical anthropology.
We aim to understand the global nature of emerging infectious diseases and learn about
factors affecting how we recognize, control, prevent, and treat these diseases. Students
develop seminar projects that analyze disease outbreaks in various countries: how
does the spread of new diseases relate to social inequality? New medical technologies?
Drug policies? Global climate change? Studying infectious diseases gives us a powerful
example of how methods in medical and social sciences come together in addressing
health problems.