I am emailing to thank you for earlier input concerning a course I was designing for this coming semester (originally, my course was to be taught in the Summer, but other committments have shifted it to the Fall). Please find attached a copy of syllabus that I have developed for a "AIDS 101" course to be taught at Carnegie Mellon this Fall. This course is being offered as a freshman seminar in the History department; therefore, I have avoided some of the more complicated issues surrounding AIDS that are familiar to most of you. On the other hand, I have avoided this being an introduction to AIDS, since eighteen or nineteen year olds will have been conversant with these issues since their late childhood. Also, the course attempts to start with personal biographies and work towards larger-scaled analyses of AIDS as a historical issue. (The historical documents are interspersed with exercises that are designed to introduce freshman to the bare bones of analysis and writing -- ) Thank you all for your previous input. If anybody would like further information on the course, please feel free to email me. ------------------------------------------------------------------- AIDS in American Society Carnegie Mellon University History 79-150B, Fall 1993 Porter Hall A20A Tuesday, Thursday: 10.30 - 11.50 am Instructor: Timothy Haggerty Office: Baker Hall 360 Office Hours: Tues., Thurs.: 12-1 pm, and by appointment Phone: 268-5735; History Department: 268-2880 Home Phone (best for messages): 621-1961 e-mail: th1h@andrew.cmu.edu Introduction: In the last decade, AIDS, or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, has gone from being a disease of marginalized social groups to becoming a central metaphor in American culture and life. This course will examine how American society is coming to understand AIDS, and how this understanding will inform the political and personal decisions made concerning the disease. Since there is not yet an informed consensus in American society concerning the medical, ethical, or policy issues surrounding AIDS, we will be forced, as historians, to come up with our own interpretive frameworks in order to understand the relative historical impact of the disease upon society. Given the current nature of the epidemic, this course will necessarily draw upon a number of resources and disciplines for its source materials. Therefore, we will be reading policy briefs, journalistic reports, and medical journals as well as historical documents. Unlike most courses taught about AIDS, this is not a public policy or public health course, though we will necessarily touch upon both of those disciplines in our assignments and fields of inquiry. By examining the way in which American culture has confronted and AIDS in its first decade, this course hopes to to help its participants better understand the processes that contribute to the creation of history. Course Materials and Requirements: This course has three required texts, which are available at the CMU bookstore: Paul Monette. Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988. Randy Shilts. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. Susan Sontag. Illness as Metaphor ; and, AIDS and its Metaphors. New York : Doubleday, Anchor Books ed., 1990. Copies of these books will be placed on reserve at Hunt Library, along with texts from which we will be reading exerpts. In the following outline, if a reading is marked as a "Reserve Xerox," two copies of the reading are available at Hunt Library; you may borrow them or make copies to read for yourselves. In addition, this course will take advantage of the technology available at CMU in the following ways: Electronic mail, (or e-mail) is a means of communicating to one another. If, for any reason, you need to bring up a matter with me in private and you do not wish to do so verbally, you may communicate with me through e-mail. You will be required to subscribe, by week 2, to an electronic bulletin board (or b-board) created for this class, "academic.hist.79-150B." This bulletin board will have several purposes: first, it will be the medium through which I will post assignments and discussion questions. Second, the b-board will be a forum for discussions outside of the classroom setting. Since AIDS is a subject matter that involves intimate issues surrounding disease, mortality, and sexuality, it may be easier for some people to respond to one another through writing. Each class will have two or three points of query that I will post. You are required to respond to at least one question a week, though, of course, more participation is always welcome. Guidelines for b-board postings will be handed out in class. Another requirement involves you to subscribe (again, by week 2) to a b-board on the Internet called "netnews.sci.med.aids." This bulletin board is a forum that discusses some of the scientific and political issues that surround AIDS. In addition, several correspondents on the bulletin board post AIDS news summaries, medical newsletters or articles, as well as their own opinions. I am not requiring you to actually participate in this debate; however, I would like you to "eavesdrop" two or three times a week to get an idea of what issues currently confront people who are intimately involved with AIDS, either as people living with HIV infection, caretakers or service providers, or as medical researchers. Occasionally, I will base a class discussion on a thread of research or argument that comes from the bulletin board. There are two sets of goals for this course. First, you should emerge from this course knowing a great deal more about AIDS then when you walked in. More importantly, this course will act as a means through which you exercise your analytical capabilities through critical reading, writing, and discussion. Participation through the written assignments, b-board discussions, and classroom exercises are the ways through which you will develop your analytical skills. Assignments and Grading: As mentioned above, you will be asked to contribute to the e-mail discussions at leat once a week in weeks 3-12. Each of these short essays will comprise 2 percent of your grade. In addition to these short essays, there will be 5 assignments, of approximately 2 pages each in length, that concentrate on the development of your research and analytical skills. Each of these exercises will count for 5 percent of your grade. Since this course requires you to compose at least one short essay a week for public consumption, it would be redundant to ask you to write other short essays in order to summarize readings or an author's argument. Instead, I am asking you to write a long essay. Besides your postings, you will be required to write a research paper, from 10 to 15 pages in length, that covers an aspect of the AIDS epidemic that you find particularly compelling. Writing an historical research paper requires a great deal of planning: therefore, you should use the series of five exercises as a way towards focusing and completing your final essay. The breakdown of your final grade will be comprised of the following: Class Participation: 20% E-Mail discussions: 20% Exercises 1-5: 25% Final Paper: 35% As the more arithmetically inclined will immediately grasp, you cannot do well in this class unless you come and participate. You cannot get above an 80 (or a B-) unless you come to class consistently. Be forewarned: nothing pisses the instructor off more then a bright student who thinks she or he can skate by on charm and a good haircut. You will be relieved, however, to see that there are no exams scheduled for this class. Class Schedule Part I: The Emergence of AIDS Week 1: Thurs., Aug. 26: Class Introduction. No Assigment. Week 2: Tues., Aug. 31: Center for Disease Control materials (handouts, Reserve Xeroxes). Guide to B-board Postings (handout) ` (Reminder: Subscribe to Bulletin Boards) Thurs., Sept. 2: Monette: Borrowed Time, Chapters I-III (pages 1-76). Week 3: Tues., Sept. 7: Monette, IV- VII (78-183). Assignment 1: "Gathering Information" Handed Out Thurs., Sept. 9: Sue Collins: Library Presentation Week 4: Tues., Sept. 14: Film: Silverlake Life: The View From Here (1992). Thurs., Sept. 16: Monette, VIII- X (184- 268). Assignment 1 Due Week 5: Tues., Sept. 21: Monette, XI- XII (269-342). Assignment 2: "Notetaking and Organization" Handed Out Thurs., Sept. 23: Sontag: AIDS and Its Metaphors Part II. AIDS in America: Issues and Responses Week 6: Tues., Sept. 28: MacNeill, William H. "Transoceanic Exchanges, 1500-1700" Chapter V (176-207) of Plagues and Peoples. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1976. (Reserve Xerox, Book on Reserve). Thurs., Sept. 30: Shilts, And The Band Played On Parts I - III (1-112). Assignment 2 Due Week 7: Tues., Oct. 5: Shilts, Part IV (115-215). Assignment 3: "Proposals and Bibliographies" Out Thurs., Oct. 7: Shilts, Part V (219-335). Week 8: Tues., Oct. 12: Shilts, Part VI (339-402). Thurs., Oct. 14: Shilts, Part VII (405-503). Assignment 3 Due Week 9: Tues., Oct. 19: Shilts, Parts VIII, IX (507-605). Assignment 4: "Reading Critically" Handed Out Thurs., Oct. 21: Film: Longtime Companion (1990). Week 10: Tues., Oct. 26: Activism and AIDS Kramer, Larry."1,112 and Counting" [1983] (33-50) and "I Can't Believe You Want to Die" [1987] (162-176) in Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989 (Reserve Xerox, Book on Reserve). Epstein, S. "Democratic Science: AIDS Activism and the Contested Construction of Knowledge." Socialist Review 21 (April-June, 1991): 35-64 (Reserve Xerox). Thurs., Oct. 28: Minority Populations and AIDS Menendez-Bergad, S., E. Drucker, S.H. Vermund, R.R. Castano, R.R. Perez-Agosto, et. al., "AIDS Mortality Among Puerto-Ricans and Other Hispanics in New York City, 1981-1987." Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 3(1990):644-648 (Reserve Xerox). Selwyn, P.A., R.J. Carter, E.E. Schoenbaum, et. al., "Knowledge of HIV Antibody Status and Decisions to Continue or Terminate Pregnancy Among Intravenous Drug Users" Journal of the American Medical Association 261(1989):3567-3571 (Reserve Xerox). Thomas, S.B. and S.C. Quinn, "The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932-1972: Implications for HIV Education and AIDS Risk Education Programs in the Black Community." American Journal of Public Health 81(1991): 1498-1505 (Reserve Xerox). Assignment 4 Due Part III. Reinterpreting AIDS Week 11: Tues., Nov 2: Assessing the Epidemic National Research Council. "Introduction and Summary" Chapter 1 (1-23) in The Social Impact of AIDS, Albert R. Jonsen and Jeff Stryker, eds. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993 (Reserve Xerox). Assignment 5: "Outlining an Argument" Handed Out Thurs., Nov. 4: National Research Council. "The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in New York City" Chapter 9 (243-301) in The Social Impact of AIDS (Reserve Xerox). Week 12: Tues., Nov. 9: The Global AIDS Policy Coalition. "A Global Epidemic Out of Control?" Chapter 1 (1-8) in AIDS in the World, Jonathan M. Mann, M.D., M.P.H., et al., eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992 (Reserve Xerox). Thurs., Nov. 11: The Global AIDS Policy Coalition. "The HIV Pandemic: Status and Trends" Chapter Two (11-108) in AIDS in the World (Reserve Xerox). Assignment 5 Due Week 13: Tues., Nov. 16: Chapter Three: "The AIDS Pandemic" (109-132) in AIDS in the World (Reserve Xerox). Thurs., Nov. 18: Film: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Week 14: Tues., Nov. 23: Conclusions Rough Draft of Final Paper Due in Class Week 15: Tues., Nov. 30: Individual meetings regarding papers Thurs., December 2: No Class Scheduled Final Papers Due : Tues., Dec. 7: by 5:OO pm.