Spring 2026 Undergraduate Courses

From Herodicus’s work with wrestlers and boxers in Classical Greece and Galen’s work with gladiators in the Roman Empire, to the more modern developments of running shoes, artificial turf, protective headgear, and Tommy John surgery, this course surveys the historical relationship of sports, technology, and medicine. We will track technological inventions and advances that brought new sports into being and changed the nature of existing sports, and explore how sports medicine has developed in response to these technologies, both in the treatment of new types of injuries and in the creation of technologies to prevent injury and enhance performance. We will also look at ways that medical technologies, such as prosthetic devices, have made sports accessible to a wider body of participants. Activities will include working with the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine as they highlight collection items in anticipation of the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games being held in Minnesota in June 2026. More Info.

Instructor: Mary Thomas

Dates: Jan 20, 2026 – May 04, 2026

Meeting Times: M 06:00 PM – 08:30 PM (150 minutes)

Location: Bruininks Hall 512B

Units: 3.0

Introduction to historical relationship of human health and the environment. How natural/human-induced environmental changes have, over time, altered our experiences with disease and our prospects for health.

Recent concerns about the current pandemic have attracted attention to previous infectious disease outbreaks that played large roles in shaping human political, economic, and social history, such as the Black Death in the 14th century, smallpox in the 16th century Columbian exchange, and the 1918 global influenza pandemic. In all of these instances, changes in trading patterns and human habitation within the environment created new opportunities for disease. This class explores the historical interaction between environment and human health. We begin by looking at early medical writers' understanding of the relationship of the geographic environment to hereditary constitution and health and go on to examine the symbiotic relationship between pathogens and human hosts and how human actions (such as migration and warfare) alter the environmental conditions for health and disease. We will look beyond infectious diseases to the effects on health of the built environment and human interventions, including industrialization, pollution, sanitary engineering, and of social factors, such as public health programs, environmental racism, poverty, and privatization of basic resources, that have historically affected the distribution of environmental risks and disease. More info. 

Instructor: Jole Shackelford

Dates: Jan 20, 2026 – May 04, 2026

Meeting Times: TTh 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM (75 minutes)

Location: Nils Hasselmo Hall 2-101

Units: 3.0

Women's historical roles as healers, patients, research subjects, health activists. Biological determinism, reproduction, mental health, nursing, women physicians, public health reformers, alternative practitioners. Gender disparities in diagnosis, treatment, research, careers. Assignments allow students to explore individual interests.

This seminar investigates women's historical roles as healers, patients, research subjects, and health activists. Historical topics to be covered include views of gender and the body; reproduction and childbirth; women's roles as nurses, physicians, public health reformers, and alternative practitioners; women's experiences of mental illness, breast cancer, and other diseases; the role of culture and government in health; and disparities in diagnosis, treatment, research, and health careers. More Info.

Instructor: Jennifer Gunn

Dates: Jan 20, 2026 – May 04, 2026

Meeting Times: TTh 09:45 AM – 11:00 AM (75 minutes)

Location: Phillips-Wangensteen Building 3-154/156

Units: 3.0

From the blinding of Oedipus and the madness of Lear to the lameness of Charles Xavier and the autism of Charles in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the history of literature is filled to the brim with representations of people with disabilities. This course explores the historical, social, political, and medical construction of disability in a range of literary texts in order to understand the complex ways that the conception of disability changes over time. By examining the way that literature represents bodily difference, we will be better able to imagine a more inclusive and more just vision of society. More info. 

Instructor: Matthew Reznicek

Dates: Jan 20, 2026 – May 04, 2026

Meeting Times: TTh 01:00 PM – 02:15 PM (75 minutes)

Location: Nils Hasselmo Hall 2-101

Units: 3.0
 

Guided individual reading or study. More Info

Instructor: Jennifer Gunn, Jole Shackelford, Evan Roberts, Wayne Soon, Matthew Reznicek

Dates: Jan 20, 2026 – May 04, 2026

Meeting Times: None Listed

Location: No Room Listed

Units: 1.0 - 4.0