Module description
Our introductory modules on social medicine introduce students to the changing nature of modern medicine in Europe and the United States. They examine the emergence and evolution of modern medicine and its key actors and institutions as well as discourses and practices. They show how health and disease are shaped by social, cultural, political, and technological forces and inextricably linked with questions of science, technology, modernity, religion, colonialism, capitalism, racism, globalization, humanitarianism, and the state. Our focus in this module is on recent developments towards the pharmaceuticalization of health, the molecularization of life, the commodification of the body, the privatization of medical care, and the securitization of public health. These developments have fundamentally transformed today's landscape of therapeutic governance in fundamental ways.
Assessment details
- 1 x 1,400 Word Essay (30%)
- 1 x 2,400 Word Essay (70%)
Educational aims & objectives
- To introduce students to the social study of medicine.
- To provide students with an understanding of the most important actors and institutions as well as discourses and practices that are characteristic of modern medicine.
- To provide students with an understanding of the social, cultural, political, and technological forces that are shaping modern medicine.
- To offer students the possibility to explore how questions of health and disease are linked with questions of science, technology, modernity, capitalism, and globalization.
- To demonstrate the value of social scientific approaches to medicine.
- To provide insights into the empirical, methodological, and epistemological debates in the social study of medicine.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students are expected to have acquired:
- Familiarity with historical emergence and fundamental questions and approaches in the domain of Social Medicine
- Familiarity with conceptual categories informing Social Medicine
- Understanding of forms of social stratification and how these contribute to social inequality and differentials in health and well-being
- An ability to engage critically with social structures, forms of social stratification and their intersections with health
- An appreciation of the complexity and density of social and medical entanglements, and the ability to imagine and bring change
Teaching pattern
One weekly two-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar.