HI34I-30 Medicine, Empire and the Body, c.1750-1914
Introductory description
This final-year undergraduate Advanced Option module explores the fundamental transformation in attitudes about health and the body in the age of European imperial expansion. Focusing on the period 1750 to 1914, it examines how encounters with unfamiliar bodies and diseases led Europeans to rethink both the theory and practice of medicine, and the nature of human diversity.
Module aims
Through a critical examination of course materials, students will evaluate the relationship between global history and medical history, considering how imperial aims influenced medical culture, and how medical realities in turn inflected the practices of imperial management and control. Using historical, anthropological, literary and visual sources, students will gain an overview of a variety of topics illustrating European self-confidence in its natural knowledge and superiority and how fears of pollution and degeneration came to challenge these certainties. This entails a review of primary sources, secondary literature, digital resources, and a field trip to the Natural History Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford to consider how biological and cultural artefacts disseminated ideas about racial 'evolution' and 'extinction' to the broader public. Through such means, students will learn about the development of racial theory at home and abroad, and its role in shaping modern anthropology and the character of colonial medicine. By the end of the year, students will be able to situate how racialized bodies, experiences of health and illness, medical research, and anthropological theories framed the imperial enterprise.
Outline syllabus
This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.
Autumn Term
- Overview: Science and Empire
- The Columbian Exchange
- First Encounters and the Origins of Anthropology
- Medicinal Plants I: Exploration
- Medicinal Plants II: Exploitation
- Reading Week
- Disease and the Environment
- Difference on Display
- Field Trip: Pitt Rivers Museum
- Collecting Empire
Spring Term
11. The Control of the Caribbean
12. Colonial Medicine in South Asia
13. Settling Africa
14. Tropical Medicine
15. Depicting the Irish
16. Reading Week
17. Evolution, Anthropology, and Racial Science
18. Theories of Racial 'Extinction'
19. Sexuality, Gender and Empire
20. Medical Colonisation
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the role of natural knowledge in the production of imperial ideology between 1750 and 1914
- Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources (including textual, visual, and material sources) relating to imperial, medical and scientific history.
- Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments about how notions about race, health, and human difference were conceptualized and rationalised against the backdrop of European imperialism
- Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to imperial, medical and scientific history
Indicative reading list
Reading lists can be found in Talis
Specific reading list for the module
Subject specific skills
See learning outcomes.
Transferable skills
See learning outcomes.
Study time
| Type | Required |
|---|---|
| Seminars | 18 sessions of 2 hours (12%) |
| Tutorials | 4 sessions of 1 hour (1%) |
| Other activity | 4 hours (1%) |
| Private study | 256 hours (85%) |
| Total | 300 hours |
Private study description
History modules require students to undertake extensive independent research and reading to prepare for seminars and assessments. As a rough guide, students will be expected to read and prepare to comment on three substantial texts (articles or book chapters) for each seminar taking approximately 3 hours. Each assessment requires independent research, reading around 6-10 texts and writing and presenting the outcomes of this preparation in an essay, review, presentation or other related task.
Other activity description
Revision sessions
Costs
No further costs have been identified for this module.
You must pass all assessment components to pass the module.
Assessment group D3
| Weighting | Study time | Eligible for self-certification | |
|---|---|---|---|
Assessment component |
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| Seminar contribution | 10% | No | |
Reassessment component |
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| 1000 word reflection | Yes (extension) | ||
Assessment component |
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| 1500 word essay | 10% | Yes (extension) | |
Reassessment component is the same |
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Assessment component |
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| 3000 word essay | 40% | Yes (extension) | |
Reassessment component is the same |
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Assessment component |
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| 7 day take-home essay with citations and a bibliography | 40% | No | |
Reassessment component is the same |
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Feedback on assessment
Written feedback provided via Tabula; optional oral feedback in office hours.
Courses
This module is Optional for:
- Year 3 of UENA-VQ32 Undergraduate English and History
- Year 4 of UENA-VQ33 Undergraduate English and History (with Intercalated year)
- Year 3 of UHIA-V100 Undergraduate History
- Year 4 of UHIA-V101 Undergraduate History (with Year Abroad)
- Year 3 of UHIA-V1V5 Undergraduate History and Philosophy
-
UHIA-V1V8 Undergraduate History and Philosophy (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of V1V8 History and Philosophy (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of V1V8 History and Philosophy (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of UHIA-V1V6 Undergraduate History and Philosophy (with Year Abroad)
- Year 3 of UHIA-V1V7 Undergraduate History and Philosophy (with a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of UHIA-VM11 Undergraduate History and Politics
-
UHIA-VM14 Undergraduate History and Politics (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of VM14 History and Politics (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of VM14 History and Politics (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of UHIA-VM12 Undergraduate History and Politics (with Year Abroad)
- Year 3 of UHIA-VM13 Undergraduate History and Politics (with a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of UHIA-VL13 Undergraduate History and Sociology
-
UHIA-VL16 Undergraduate History and Sociology (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of VL16 History and Sociology (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of VL16 History and Sociology (with Year Abroad and a term in Venice)
- Year 4 of UHIA-VL14 Undergraduate History and Sociology (with Year Abroad)
This module is Option list A for:
- Year 4 of UITA-R3V2 Undergraduate History and Italian
This module is Option list B for:
- Year 3 of UHIA-V1V5 Undergraduate History and Philosophy
- Year 4 of UHIA-V1V6 Undergraduate History and Philosophy (with Year Abroad)
- Year 3 of UHIA-VM11 Undergraduate History and Politics
- Year 4 of UHIA-VM12 Undergraduate History and Politics (with Year Abroad)