Society and Health in Historical Perspective

2020/2021

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered by:

Department of History

Type:

Elective course

When:

4 year, 3 module

Instructors

Vasilyev, Pavel

Loskutova, Marina

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course surveys the history of medical knowledge and practice from antiquity to the early 20th century. The course will explore a number of ongoing themes: race, bodily difference, and medicine; medicine and the environment; women, gender, and medicine; the history of the body; the history of sexuality; and the close connections between forms of social order and forms of medical knowledge.

Learning Objectives

• Students will understand the fundamental questions and methods of the history of medicine; they will develop critical skills of assessing medicine’s complex role in contemporary society.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Student will be able to read analytically academic literature for seminars, summarise it, highlight the main arguments, and critically evaluate them
• Students will be able to discuss academic literature during a seminar and participate in a group discussion in English
• Students will be able to compare the views of different authors on the same subject, analyse and evaluate the ideas of other students suggested during seminar discussions

Course Contents

• Introduction
  Health and disease from a historical perspective. The practitioners' perspective and critical social history of medicine.
• European medicine in the 16th-17th centuries
  European medicine in the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. Population, health and the early modern state
• Health, medicine and modernity (1)
  The making of the medical professions; epidemic diseases, sanitation movement and public health in the 19th century
• Health, medicine and modernity (2)
  Scientific medicine in the 19th century
• Epidemics and the Making of Modern Public Health
  Epidemics and the Making of Modern Public Health
• Medicine and Twentieth-Century Warfare
  Medicine and Twentieth-Century Warfare
• Pharmaceuticalization of Everyday Life
  Pharmaceuticalization of Everyday Life
• Global Health
  Global Health

Assessment Elements

• Participation in seminars
• Short oral presentation (a summary of a scholarly article)
• Take-home written exam
  A student chooses one of a list of questions announced at the last seminar and is expected to produce a written answer of 500-1000 words length. The deadline for submitting an answer is 10 days before the formal date of exam. If the answer is shorter than 500 words the grade for this assignment will be reduced by 2 points.
• Analytical reading - controlled with Perusall (www.perusall.com)
  Students' comprehension of an assigned reading material is checked through Perusall - for further instruction see perusall.com

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (3 module)
  0.25 * Analytical reading - controlled with Perusall (www.perusall.com) + 0.25 * Participation in seminars + 0.25 * Short oral presentation (a summary of a scholarly article) + 0.25 * Take-home written exam

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Bynum, W. F. (2008). The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=363643

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Porter, R. (2001). Bodies Politic : Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900. London: Reaktion Books. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=440604