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Histories of Health in the Middle East and North Africa

Module description

Questions of disease, health, medicine, the body, and the environment are rapidly growing concerns of historians of the Middle East and North Africa. This cutting-edge module offers a unique opportunity to engage with this exciting, developing field: it introduces you to key themes, methodologies, and analytic approaches which historians and scholars from the wider field of the medical humanities have embraced in studying histories in the Middle East and North Africa. At the heart of the module is a double question: how does writing on/from the Middle East and North Africa reframe the concerns and methods of histories of medicine and the medical humanities, and conversely, what does taking questions of health and disease seriously mean for wider histories of the Middle East and North Africa? Through engaging with key case studies drawn particularly from the last two centuries using innovative recent published research and in seminar discussions, you will gain an in-depth understanding of how historians and other researchers including medical anthropologists, historical sociologists, and archaeologists have begun to write health back into the history of the Middle East and North Africa.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module is designed to develop your understanding of an emerging field: histories of health in the Middle East and North Africa. It aims to enable you to critically evaluate key themes, methodologies, and analytic approaches adopted by historians and other researchers in order to interpret issues of health, medicine, disease, the body, and the environment in their specific historical and cultural contexts. In addition to orienting you in relation to the wider state of the field, the module also provides you with the opportunity to study in more detail particular case studies, areas, or themes within this history, tailored to reflect your own interests, and so develop a deep, critical understanding of an aspect of this history. It will give you the skills necessary to review recent scholarly books and articles in the field, and to produce critical writing assessing key themes, methods, and approaches. You will also have the opportunity to reflect on the relationship between histories of health and issues related to health in the region today.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and evaluate the main themes and approaches in histories of health in the Middle East and North Africa
• 2. Develop detailed knowledge of the key historiographical and theoretical debates informing the study of histories of health in the Middle East and North Africa
• 3. Assess critically the role of primary sources in informing the study of histories of health in the Middle East and North Africa

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Analyse and synthesise different types of historical material and evidence
• 5. Demonstrate a critical understanding of key historical concepts and debates, and recognise the differences between different approaches and source types
• 6. Research for yourself and present independent accounts and interpretations of different historical issues

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Demonstrate capacity for independent critical research, study and thought, including developing the ability to construct and defend a sustained argument, both in written form and orally, using primary and secondary materials
• 8. Work as an individual and with a tutor and peers in an independent, constructive and responsive way
• 9. Apply key bibliographical skills to independent study

Syllabus plan

This will be a team-taught module and the syllabus will vary according to the composition of the module team and student choice. Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics: 

• Introduction to histories of health in the Middle East and North Africa
• The environment and health
• Ottoman histories of health
• Plague and epidemics
• Histories of drugs and addiction
• Psychiatry and psychoanalysis
• Colonial and mission medicine
• State-building and medicine
• War/displacement and medicine

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Joelle Abi-Rached, ?Asfuriyyeh: A History of Madness, Modernity, and War in the Middle East (MIT Press, 2020).
• Gülhan Balsoy, The Politics of Reproduction in Ottoman Society, 1838-1900 (Routledge, 2016).
• Orkideh Behrouzan, Proz?k Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2016).
• Elise Burton, Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity (Stanford University Press, 2021).
• Jennifer Derr, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2019).
• Omar Dewachi, Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2017).
• Hormoz Ebrahimnejad, Medicine in Iran: Profession, Practice, and Politics, 1800-1925 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
• Omnia El Shakry, The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017).
• Khaled Fahmy, In Quest of Justice: Islamic Law and Forensic Medicine in Modern Egypt (University of California Press, 2018).
• Nahyan Fancy, Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt: Ibn al-Nafis, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection (Routledge, 2013).
• Maziyar Ghiabi, Drugs Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
• Sara Scalenghe, Disability in the Ottoman Arab World, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
• Sandra Sufian, Healing the Land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine, 1920-1947 (University of Chicago Press, 2007).

Key words search

Middle East and North Africa; Medical Humanities; Medical History; Social History