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Health and its Politics in the 20th Century: Context

Module description

Who has a right to health, and who is responsible for maintaining it? Who should pay for it and who should provide it? Questions around access to health and medical management have been central to how international order, state formations and political systems have been imagined and organized in the 20th century. We will explore relationships among social and political structures and health in local, national and global contexts, moving in space, time and thematic approach throughout the course. We will focus on intersections of medical technologies and scientific knowledge, social movements and political ideologies, such as empires and the bacteriological revolution; reproductive rights and women’s health movements; socialist ideas of health and decolonization; and the rise of global health and the ‘neoliberal’ world order.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Together with its co-requisite, the module aims to

• Introduce you to the overlapping histories of scientific knowledge, public health, professionalisation, diplomacy, governance, economics, social movements, political ideologies, decolonization and internationalism, and encourage a critical engagement with these histories by applying comparative and transnational perspectives.
• Study the relationship of politics and health throughout the 20^th century through public health campaigns, changing treatment regimens, the emergence of various health systems and global health programmes.
• Introduce new interpretations or, and approaches to 20^th century history from the fields of medical historiography and the history of science
• Develop research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers through engaging with the complex historiographies and controversies over different aspects of health and politics in the 20^th century

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Ability to evaluate the different complex themes in the history of medicine and public health from a comparative and transnational perspective
• 2. Ability to make close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the period, developed through independent study and seminar work

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. Ability to analyse the key developments within ideas and practices of health in the 20th century
• 4. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex issues
• 5. Ability to understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
• 6. Ability to follow the changes in health and politics in local, national and global perspectives in the 20th century.

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 8. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 9. Ability to present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

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

• The politics of prevention
• Colonial health management
• Health internationalists
• Socialist medicine
• The medical marketplace
• Welfare states and health
• Race and the politics of healthcare
• Health disasters and the regulation of medical interventions
• Reproductive health
• War and health
• The rise of global health and the neoliberal world order
• Disease outbreaks and pandemics

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

• Holmberg, Christine; Blume, Stuart and Greenough, Paul eds: The Politics of Vaccination: a Global History. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2018
• Reinisch, Jessica, The Perils of Peace: The Public Health Crisis in Occupied Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013
• Engelmann, Lukas, Mapping AIDS: Visual Histories of an Enduring Epidemic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Greene JA, Condreau F, and Watkins ES (eds.) Therapeutic Revolutions: Pharmaceuticals and Social Change in the 20th Century.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016
• Wailoo, Keith, Pain, a Political History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
• Vargha, Dora, Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary’s Cold War with an Epidemic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Brazelton, Mary, Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China. Durham: Cornell University Press, 2019
• Peckham, Robert ed., Empires of Panic. Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties. Hong Kong: HKU Press, 2016.
• Pearson, Jessica, The Colonial Politics of Global Health. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018
• Packard, Randall, The History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other Peoples. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
• Sunil Amrith, Decolonizing International Health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006
• Harold Cook, et. al., eds., History of the Social Determinants of Health: Global Histories, Contemporary Debates (India: Orient Blackswan, 2009)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11351 

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Exeter Electronic Library resources include: ProQuest Theses and Dissertations
• Key journals for the module are available via JSTOR, Project Muse, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge Journals Online, Oxford Journals

Key words search

Health, medicine, decolonisation, Cold War, 20th century, politics, ideology, society, science, state, technology, global health, internationalism, international organizations