HI3T8-30 Rebuilding the Body: The Pursuit of Perfection, 1861-2021
Introductory description
We live in demanding times. Humans today are bombarded with images of ‘perfect’ bodies, and surrounded by products claiming to perfect our minds and lives. Self-help is big business, and individual success is persistently tied to levels of physical and mental wellness that hover just out of reach. Self-improvement is nothing new -- but our contemporary focus on perfectible bodies has intensified with the rise of secularism, consumerism, and 'self-optimisation'. This module will draw on cultural history, disability studies, and the histories of science, technology and medicine to ask: ‘What is a perfect body, and who is served by the pursuit of perfection?’ Comparisons across global cultures of 'perfection' will test Eurocentric understandings of what constitutes the physical and mental' ideal'.
Module aims
This module will explore the emergence of contemporary cultures of self-improvement; test claims about the benefits and attainability of perfect health and well-being; and historicise contemporary expectations of self-perfectibility. Looking initially at post-conflict rehabilitation, surgeries of assimilation, and the emergence of a marketplace of perfectibility, it will challenge assumptions about ability and disability and set the stage for case studies of 'perfection' consumerism in the second half of the twentieth century. These cases studies will incorporate attention to biomedical and technological developments while challenging claims that novel tools and techniques drive changing ideas about perfect bodies, minds or lives. By sifting specific case studies, students will develop the tools required to trace the impacts on ideals of human perfection of social, political and economic change; gender, class and ethnic positionality; and the dissemination of cultural assumptions through mass media. While the module's principle examples will be drawn from the US and UK, students will also encounter very different ideals and practices of 'perfection' drawn from other cultures.
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.
Week 1 Introduction and Key Approaches
Week 2: Restoring Masculinity: War-torn Bodies and Minds
Week 3 Repairing Difference: Plastic Surgeries of War and Peace
Week 4 Selling Better Bodies: Commercialising Perfection
Week 5 Selling Better Brains: Medicating Minds
Week 6 Reading Week
Week 7 Pursuing Pleasure: From Vibrators to Viagra
Week 8 Making Babies: New Reproductive Technologies
Week 9 Seeing and Selecting: Dystopian Perfection
Week 10 Body hackers: Self-Enablement and Rejecting “Perfect”
Week 11 Conclusion and Critical Essay Workshop
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the pursuit of ideal embodiment in the US and UK from 1861-2021.
- Critically analyse and evaluate the social, economic and political impacts of cultures of self-improvement through medical, technological and commercial interventions on embodiment.
- Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments relating to the role of the media and the marketplace in selling 'perfect' selfhood.
- Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to ability, disability, and identity in the modern period.
- Produce critically engaged undergraduate scholarship on the history and contemporary impacts of the pursuit of perfect bodies and lives.
- Contextualise and critically evaluate contemporary cultures of perfectionism and hyper-attainment.
Indicative reading list
Reading lists can be found in Talis
Research element
Students will use primary research in the historical databases, film, literature, and popular culture to write their first and third essays. They MAY, with module leader's permission and ethics approval, use social media research and surveys to further explore their topics.
Interdisciplinary
This module will include readings from science and technology studies, medical anthropology, and medical sociology. Some sources will be drawn from the medical literature.
International
While the principal geographies of this module will be the US and UK, it will also include global examples for the purpose of critical comparison.
Subject specific skills
See learning outcomes.
Transferable skills
See learning outcomes.
Study time
| Type | Required |
|---|---|
| Seminars | 19 sessions of 2 hours (13%) |
| Tutorials | 4 sessions of 1 hour (1%) |
| Private study | 258 hours (86%) |
| 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.
Costs
No further costs have been identified for this module.
You do not need to pass all assessment components to pass the module.
Assessment group A
| Weighting | Study time | Eligible for self-certification | |
|---|---|---|---|
Assessment component |
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| Seminar contribution | 10% | No | |
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This assessment will reflect students' active contributions to small and whole group discussions in seminar. There will be no penalty for non-participation when students have excused absences, but unexcused absences will draw a score of 0 for that day. Student preparation encompasses completing their required readings for the day -- c. 2-3 hours per seminar. |
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Reassessment component |
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| 1000 word reflective essay in lieu of Seminar Contribution | Yes (extension) | ||
Assessment component |
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| 1500 word essay | 10% | Yes (extension) | |
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This essay, identifying, interrogating and critically contextualising a piece of historical advertising, reporting, or self-help advice, will support students in developing the digital and archival skills they will require for their final essays, and the critical and analytical skills they will use for their intermediate essay assessment. |
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Reassessment component is the same |
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Assessment component |
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| 3000 word source-based essay | 40% | Yes (extension) | |
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Students will select from a curated list a novel, film, autobiographical account, or (with advanced permission) physical object, social media artefact or other digital source, and use it to explore attitudes towards the pursuit of perfection. Examples will include sources from different cultures and geographies from the Cold War to the present day. |
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Reassessment component is the same |
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Assessment component |
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| 3000 word essay | 40% | Yes (extension) | |
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Drawing on and extending the case studies we have explored across the module, use the historical literature and primary research to analyse the pressure to be ‘perfect’ and the ways in which individuals, societies, corporations and states experience and respond to changing expectations and ideals of embodiment. Students will define their own titles, subject to module leader approval. |
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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 Core optional for:
- Year 3 of UENA-VQ34 Undergraduate English and History (with a term in Venice)
- Year 3 of UHIA-V102 Undergraduate History (Renaissance and Modern History Stream)
- Year 4 of UHIA-V105 Undergraduate History (Renaissance and Modern History Stream) (with Intercalated Year)
- Year 4 of UHIA-V103 Undergraduate History (Renaissance and Modern History Stream) (with Year Abroad)