Politics and the Life Sciences

Overview

Significant political debates of the coming century will involve issues raised by advances in the life sciences - including targeted genetic medicine, reproductive technology, aging research, neuroscience, and psychopharmacology - that create both promise and unease about transformations in the human condition. Poised to welcome students who want academically to study these and related debates, NIU's graduate program offers Politics and the Life Sciences ("biopolitics"). For over 20 years, NIU's political science department has been the only one in the country to offer biopolitics as a distinct field of study. Scholars of biopolitics study the intersections of the biological and social sciences, including environmental policy, biological warfare, study of the biological bases of behavior, and biomedical technology.

History of the Field

In the 1980s, NIU's faculty members established the field of biopolitics and also helped found and direct the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences and the association's journal, Politics and the Life Sciences. In the late 1990s administration of the association and journal moved to the political science department at Utah State University and to the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, respectively.

Student accomplishments

Students who study biopolitics at NIU are encouraged to develop active research records. In the most recent annual meeting of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, for example, current NIU students presented papers on topics including political evolution, Korean cloning policy, neuroscience and feminism, organ donation policy, evolution and solitude, and ethnic nepotism. In recent years present and former graduate students have also presented papers at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting, Illinois Political Science Association, and other annual conferences. Recent Ph.D.s from NIU have taken teaching positions at public and private universities. Some students who selected biopolitics as a second field have said that biopolitics (and the ability to teach courses in contemporary issues in health and biomedical policy) was very important in their being hired.

Graduate Courses

All graduate students offering biopolitics as a first or second field are required to take the core course in biopolitical theory, POLS 530. Ph.D. students take a minimum of 12 hours in their first field and 9 hours in their second field. M.A. students take a minimum of 9 hours in their primary field.

Students with particular interests in the intersection of the biological sciences and policy might select among the following policy-oriented courses:

 

POLS 524             Natural Resources Policy

POLS 526             Health Policy

POLS 530             Biopolitical Theory

POLS 531             Biomedical Policy

POLS 532             Biotechnology and Political Structures

SOCI 451             Medical Sociology

SOCI 462             Aging and Society

SOCI 482             Sociology of Death and Dying

Students with particular interests in the theoretical dimensions of biology might select among the following theory-oriented courses:

POLS 530             Biopolitical Theory

POLS 537             Evolution and Political Theory

BIOS 477             Human Genetics

PHIL 431             Contemporary Ethical Theory

PHIL 552             Philosophy of Science

Special topics courses are also occasionally offered, such as Risk Regulation.

Undergraduate Courses

 

 

The department also offers courses relating to biopolitics at the undergraduate level. Some of these courses are cross-listed with courses in the department of biological sciences. These include the following:

POLS 320             Biopolitics and Human Nature

POLS 322             Politics and the Life Sciences

POLS 323             Biomedicine and the Law

POLS 326             Politics of Energy and the Environment