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A History of Epidemics from the Plague to Zika

Module description

Through issues of vaccination, restrictions on travel, sex education or just missing school and work because of a common flu, epidemics affect our lives, political and economic systems, culture and society. Conversely, social, political and cultural factors shape how we deal with epidemics, how they are prevented, treated, talked about or silenced. By looking at historical case studies of epidemic diseases, this module explores a range of topics from ideas of nationhood through concerns over sexuality to Cold War policies. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aim of the module is to introduce you to the broad range of sources available to the modern historian, through study of the main developments relating to epidemics and the history of medicine from Medieval to Contemporary History. Individual seminars will focus on various sources, such as government records, oral history interviews, medical reports, legislation, statistics, photographs, letters, newspaper articles, films, and songs. You will also have the opportunity to conduct your own research into these sources, consider their value and limitations, and use them to explore particular topics and themes. This module will help you develop skills in source analysis and research to provide a foundation for future historical work.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Understand and assess the main developments in the history of medicine and epidemics
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources relating to the topic

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc., and compare the validity of different types of sources
• 4. Present work orally, respond to questions orally, and think quickly of questions to ask other students

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 7. Work with others in a team and to interact effectively with the tutor and the wider group
• 8. Write to a very tight word-length.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• the Black Death
• Empire and Epidemics
• Disease eradication
• the Spanish Flu,
• venereal diseases and the morality of contagion
• cholera and urban societies
• HIV/AIDS and stigma
• Zika
• regulating the unknown

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 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Frank Huisman and John Harley Warner (eds.), Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004
• Rosenberg, Charles, and Janet Golden, eds. Framing Disease: Studies in Cultural History. Second ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
• Robert Aronowitz, Making Sense of Illness, Cambridge University Press, 1998
• Anne Hardy, Health and Medicine in Britain since 1860 (Macmillan, 2000). X2016
• Virginia Berridge, Health and Society in Britain since 1939 (CUP, 1999). X1841
• Mark Harrison: Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease, Yale University Press, 2012
• David Rothman, Steven Marcus, and Stephanie Kiceluk, eds., Medicine and Western Civilization, Rutgers University Press, 1995
• John Pickstone: Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology and Medicine. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
• McNeill, William H., Plagues and Peoples (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977)
• Priscilla Wald, Contagious. Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008

Key words search

disease, medicine, health, epidemics, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern, empire, war, social history