The Dark History of Pseudoscience: Race, Power, and Control

This course unpacks the disturbing global history and legacy of eugenics and pseudoscience..

Across five concise, powerful video modules this course will  explore:

1. The Birth of Eugenics and Scientific Racism: How 19th-century scientists used skulls, IQ scores, and social Darwinism to rank humanity—and justify exclusion.

2. Sterilization, Disability, and State Control: How the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and others sterilized hundreds of thousands, often targeting women, disabled people, and people of color.

3. Global Eugenics and the Politics of Population Control: How colonial and Cold War governments, along with foundations like Rockefeller and USAID, imposed birth control, “voluntary” sterilization, and genetic screening on the Global South.

4. The New Eugenics: Data, DNA, and Algorithmic Discrimination:How modern tools like predictive policing, embryo selection, AI hiring software, and healthcare algorithms quietly carry forward eugenic logics today.

5. Resistance and Reckoning – How survivors, activists, and scholars have fought back

Throughout the course, we’ll draw connections across gender, race, class, and colonialism, using real-world case studies, legal decisions, and current technologies.  This course will draw connections across ender, race, class, and colonialism, using real-world case studies, empirical examples, legal decisions, and current technologies. With this course, students will leave not just with historical knowledge but also with a lens to question science and power today.