Module HIST30Y3: Change in Twentieth-Century Britain. Making Modern Bodies: Health, Disability, and Technology in Interwar Britain

Department: History

HIST30Y3: Change in Twentieth-Century Britain. Making Modern Bodies: Health, Disability, and Technology in Interwar Britain

Prerequisites

• A pass mark in at least TWO level two modules in History.

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To develop a detailed understanding of health, disability, and technology in twentieth-century British history. To cultivate a strong grounding in using a range of primary sources to conduct historical research into disability and medical history
• be able to critically assess the relevant historiography.

Content

• The central question of this course is, what made modern bodies? To answer this we look at a series of case studies and possible forces that could answer this question— ranging from technology to testing, eugenics to education, war to work, and coalmining to classification.
• Using a wide-array of sources (including personal letters, government reports, objects, health propaganda, diagnostic photography) we will analyse the implications of individual activism through case studies which demonstrate how health and disease has been understood and commodified for use in medicine, marketplaces, institutions, and the state.

Learning Outcomes

• Gain experience in the handling of primary source materials, and an appreciation of their uses when addressing complex historical problems;
• Advace understanding of long-running historiographical debates concerning nterpretations of the body to the relations of authority between doctor and patient and the institutional settings of medical practice before the NHS.
• Understand key concepts from medical history and the field of disability history studies, including the social and medical models, the social construction of disease concepts, the patient voice, and history from below.
• Critically discuss these theories and consider how history can help us understand health and disease today.
• Become a sophisticated interdisciplinary thinker
• Construct intellectually rigorous historical arguments based on independent research and critical engagement with the existing scholarly literature;
• Progress the ability to present these arguments clearly, both orally and in the form of substantial but tightly-focused essays.

• Challenging students’ assumptions about the past and reflecting on the nature of the discipline (and, where appropriate, interdisciplinarity) at an advanced level
• Appreciating how historical knowledge is produced, what forms it takes, and the purposes it serves
• Reflecting on students’ own historical consciousness and practice.

• The ability to employ sophisticated reading skills to gather, sift, process, synthesise and critically evaluate information from a variety of sources (print, digital, material, aural, visual, audio-visual etc.)
• The ability to communicate ideas and information orally and in writing, devise and sustain coherent and cogent arguments
• The ability to write and think under pressure, manage time and work to deadlines
• The ability to make effective use of information and communications technology.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Student learning is facilitated by a combination of the following teaching methods:
• seminars to allow students to present and critically reflect upon the acquired subject-specific knowledge, methodologies and theories, and to identify and debate a range of issues and differing opinions. The seminar is the forum in which students are given the opportunity to communicate ideas, jointly exploring themes and arguments. Seminars are structured to develop understanding and designed to maximise student participation related to prior independent preparation. Seminars give students the opportunity to develop oral communication skills, encourage critical and tolerant approaches to reasoned argument and historical discussion, build the students' ability to marshal historical evidence, and facilitate the development of the ability to summarise historical arguments, think in a rapidly changing environment and communicate in a persuasive and articulate manner, whilst recognising the value of working with others and, occasionally, towards shared goals;
• tutorials either individually or in groups to discuss topics arising from prepared work, allowing students the opportunity to reflect upon their personal learning with the tutor.
• Assessment:
• Examinations test students' ability to work under pressure under timed conditions, to prepare for examinations and direct their own programme of revision and learning, and develop key time management skills. The unseen examination gives students the opportunity to develop relevant life skills such as the ability to produce coherent, reasoned and supported arguments under pressure. Students will be examined on subject specific knowledge;
• Summative essays remain a central component of assessment in history, due to the integrative high-order skills they develop. Essays allow students the opportunity to recognise, represent and critically reflect upon ideas, concepts and problems; students can demonstrate awareness of, and the ability to use and evaluate, a diverse range of resources and identify, represent and debate a range of subject-specific issues and opinions. Through the essay, students can synthesise information, adopt critical appraisals and develop reasoned argument based on individual research; they should be able to communicate ideas in writing, with clarity and coherence; and to show the ability to integrate and critically assess material from a wide range of sources;
• Assessment of Primary Source Handling Students are assessed on their understanding of original primary sources, usually in print, their character varying according to the nature of the subject, and the students' ability to bring that knowledge to bear on 'cutting edge' research-based monographs and articles. Students are given the opportunity to discuss and articulate an understanding of changing interpretations and approaches to historical problems, drawing evidence from a body of primary source materials. Students are required to demonstrate skills associated with the evaluation of a variety of primary source materials, using documentary analysis for a critical assessment of existing historical interpretations.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One formative essay of not more than 2500 words (not including footnotes and bibliography); preparation to participate in seminar and tutorials; at least one oral presentation, and practice source/gobbet work.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University