We are in the process of updating this page for the 2024–25 academic year.
Details are subject to change.
Please check back in September for final details.
Core modules: weeks 1–4 Michaelmas
| Medical Anthropology Iza Kavedžija HPS Seminar Room 2 |
Thursdays, 10–11.45am |
| Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine Michael Diamond-Hunter HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Mondays, 10–11.30am |
| Medical Sociology Darin Weinberg HPS Board Room |
Mondays, 2–3.30pm |
| History of Medicine Salim Al-Gailani and Philippa Carter HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Tuesdays, 3–4.30pm |
Optional modules: weeks 5–8 Michaelmas
| Medical Anthropology: 'Non-Normal' – Bodies, (Dis)Abilities, Epistemologies Kelly Fagan Robinson HPS Seminar Room 2 |
Thursdays, 10.15–11.45am |
| Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine: AI in Healthcare Marta Halina HPS Seminar Room 2 |
Mondays, 10–11.30am |
| Medical Sociology: The Sociology of Reproduction Lilian Schwoerer HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Mondays, 2–3.30pm |
| History of Medicine: More-than-Human Health Dmitriy Myelnikov HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Tuesdays, 3–4.30pm |
Optional modules: weeks 1–4 Lent
| Medical Anthropology: Anthropology of Aging and the Life Cycle Iza Kavedžija HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Thursdays, 10.15–11.45am |
| Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine: Values and Measurement HPS Seminar Room 2 |
Mondays, 10–11.30am |
| Medical Sociology: The Political Economy of Biomedical Innovation Stuart Hogarth HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Thursdays, 3–4.30pm |
| History of Medicine: Reproduction Nick Hopwood HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Tuesdays, 3–4.30pm |
Multidisciplinary Workshops
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The Boundary Between Research and Clinical Practice
Convenor: Luke Hawksbee (Sociology)
Panellists: Panellists: Michael Diamond-Hunter (PEM), Stuart Hogarth (Medical Sociology), Dmitriy Myelnikov (History of Medicine), Arnav Sethi (Medical Anthropology)
HPS Seminar Room 1
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Friday, 22nd November 2024, 11am-4pm |
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Mental Health
Kelly Fagan Robinson (Medical Anthropology), Philippa Carter (HoM), Tom McClelland (PEM)
HPS Seminar Room 1 |
Tuesday, 28th January 2025, 10am-3pm |
Further Details:
Michaelmas Term: Core modules
Medical Anthropology: Key Themes
What is “illness”? Who defines “health”? How do social processes affect each, in individuals and in collectives? How did a lack of health become associated with deviation? What are the values that underpin medical practice today? Building on insights from medical anthropology, this course critically explores diverse ideas of health and illness alongside a range of health-related practices. After considering how ‘Western’ biomedicine constructs its objects, we will explore the various ways in which people make sense of their health conditions. We will examine lived experiences of illness, and the ways in which illness is constructed and understood by those who are affected by it, as well as those who are treating it, and how truths about bodies are produced across historical periods and medical systems. The second part of the course will begin by examining how differential health outcomes relate to social inequalities, drawing on the idea of structural violence, and how these are further exacerbated by ongoing environmental disruption. An exploration of environmental health in relation to the New Pandemics will lead us to a reconsideration of biopolitics as a form of governance of populations.
Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine Core
This core module will introduce students to philosophical perspectives on health, medicine and society. Half of the module will cover core topics in philosophy of medicine, and the other half will cover topics in medical ethics. (Note that the optional modules discuss some of these issues in more detail.)
Medical Sociology Core
This module is designed to thoroughly acquaint students with the profoundly social nature of human health, illness, and disease. On a more pragmatic level, it is meant to facilitate a solid grasp of the most fundamental debates in the field, and to inspire, encourage, and prepare students to contribute to these debates. To this end, we will consider several facets of the relationship between human society and human health and illness. Major themes will include concepts of health and illness, the doctor-patient relationship and alternative medicine, health inequalities, and the relationship between social marginality and mental pathology.
History of Medicine Core
The course offers an advanced introduction to medical history by exploring some of the most interesting writing on the kinds of medicine practised in domestic sick rooms, on hospital wards and in laboratories. The seminars assess the usefulness of the categories ‘bedside medicine’, ‘hospital medicine’, ‘experimental medicine’ and ‘biomedicine’ for understanding change and continuity between early modernity and the present day. The major theme is the ways in which changing social relations have shaped knowledge and management of disease and the experience of illness.
Michaelmas Term: Optional modules
Medical Anthropology Elective Module 1: 'Non-Normal' – Bodies, (Dis)Abilities, Epistemologies
Sensation, we are told, is “the most confused notion there is… for having accepted it, classical analyses have missed the phenomenon of perception” (Merleau-Ponty 2012:25). Despite this, ‘sense’ as it is typically described in academic Euro-American texts is often unquestioned. Anthropological engagement in sense and the body, as Scheper-Hughes & Lock famously argued, can be seen as invisibly but normatively contrived, symptomatic of the culture in which they are analysed rather than in the body-subject itself. The emphasis of this seminar is to contend with social and physiological interventions in the body – particularly ‘disabled’ bodies which are adjusted (or not) to be more ‘normal’. We will examine alternative perceptions of body, sensing, being-in-the-world, and privilege to re-define what ‘normal’ is and what it does in/for anthropological praxis.
History of Medicine Elective Module 1: More-than-Human Health
Nonhuman animals are often by our side when it comes to human health and wellbeing. As disease vectors, proxies for humans in laboratories, sources of pharmaceuticals or parts of therapies themselves, animals have shaped modern medicine in numerous important ways. This module draws on historical literature, as well as some theoretical perspectives from the interdisciplinary field of animal studies, to interrogate the changing human-animal relationships in the twentieth century and their role in shaping both human and animal health. The course will investigate the uses of animals in medical practice, the controversial topic of animal experimentation, the rise of 'One Health' approaches to medicine across species, and the connected histories of livestock farming, environment, and health.
Medical Sociology Elective Module 1: The Sociology of Reproduction
This module explores key themes and questions surrounding reproduction and new reproductive technologies from a sociological perspective. It focuses on the ways that different formations of power, institutions, norms, and structures of social differentiation affect reproductive possibilities, choices and pathways. How does the gendered regulation of reproduction relate to colonialism, legacies of slavery, and capitalist political economy? How are new reproductive technologies shaped by, challenge, and reaffirm gender, sexuality, race and nation? What can movements for reproductive justice teach us about the unequal regulation of reproduction? Through investigating a range of case studies, the module also reflects on different methodological approaches to studying reproduction sociologically.
Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine Elective Module 1: AI in Healthcare
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in biomedical research and clinical practice. This course introduces students to the unique philosophical and ethical challenges involved in the use of AI in medicine. Topics include the interpretability and explainability of artificial systems, the ethics of robot carers, the role of AI in medical diagnosis, and the implications of using AI in biomedical research. Please be prepared to discuss the core readings before each session.
Lent Term: Optional modules
Medical Anthropology Elective Module 2: Anthropology of Ageing and the Life Cycle
Who can expect to live to old age? How long can people hope to live in relatively good health? How are health and personhood reconfigured in the later years? As increases in longevity around the world affect how older age is experienced and understood, questions such as these take on new relevance. This module will begin by exploring explore ideas of the life course, life stages, and inequalities associated with aging. We will then turn to the lived experience of aging, focusing on personhood and the body. The concept of care, in the third session, allow us to bring population perspectives into conjunction with the more immediate experiences of carers and those for whom they care. In the final session, we will discuss cultural perspectives on death and the ends of life.
Each week the students are required to read the essential texts marked with an asterisk and at least one of the further texts. The ‘selected themes’ draw together thematically organized text for those looking for optional readings.
In preparation for each week’s seminar, the students are requested to submit a reading response online, based on the essential readings. The reading responses are not summaries, they are required to critically engage with the text.
Medical Sociology Elective Module 2: The Political Economy of Biomedical Innovation
This module enables students to understand social science perspectives on the contemporary bioeconomy. It will explore how the biomedical research enterprise is being reshaped by governments and corporations as they search for competitive advantage in an increasingly global bioeconomy. The module is interdisciplinary drawing inter alia on science and technology studies, socio-legal studies and political economy. Topics covered will include: the emergence of the idea of a knowledge-based economy, and its function as part of the neoliberal state project (the shift from government to governance); the concept of promissory science and the promotion of biotechnology as a ‘frontier technology’; intersection between public policy and commercial strategy, and the changing relationships between governments, corporations and academic scientists; the role of regulation as a both a response to and a shaper of biotechnologies; the importance of intellectual property rights in the bioeconomy, the legalisation of patents on novel life-based technologies and the globalisation of the IP regime favoured by Western pharmaceutical companies through the TRIPS agreement.
Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine Elective Module 2: TBC
History of Medicine Elective Module 2: Reproduction
From contraception to cloning and from pregnancy to populations, reproduction presents urgent challenges today. This module introduces the history of reproduction from the middle ages to the present. It takes a long view, asking how modern ‘reproduction’ – an abstract process of perpetuating living organisms – replaced the old ‘generation’ – the active making of humans and beasts, plants and even minerals. It also takes a broad view, from individual decisions about having or not having children to global policies, and from medicine to animal breeding. It provides resources for understanding how our world of reproductive practice and controversy was made.