• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

The Body in Early Modern England

Module description

This module will provide a detailed analysis of both the history of the body in early modern England and historical sources available for the subject. Seminars will focus on exploring key issues and questions in the study of the body and its historiography. Topics covered will include: anatomy; sex and gender; sex and sexuality; medicine and midwifery; life-stages from conception to old age; illness and disease; death and dissection; regulating the body (including morality, size, behaviour); deformed, disabled, foreign and monstrous bodies.

If you have not previously studied the period you will be expected to do some general reading to familiarise yourself with the early modern world.

You will require at least 90 credits of History at level 1 and/or level 2 to complete this module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

• To analyse the history of the body in early modern England
• To analyse the historical sources available for the subject

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Evaluate the various themes in the history of the body in early modern England
• 2. Assess key developments both in terms of medical and scientific knowledge and in representation during the period developed through independent study and seminar work

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. Analyse the key developments within a particular historical environment
• 4. Focus on and comprehend complex issues
• 5. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 6. Study independently and also work within a group, including presentation of material for group discussion
• 7. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument
• 8. Present complex arguments in writing and orally

Syllabus plan

The syllabus will include some, or all, of the following topics.

• Anatomy
• Sex and gender
• Medicine, health and disease
• Body functions
• Life-stages from infancy to old age
• Death and dissection
• Clothing and nakedness
• Conception, pregnancy and childbirth
• Sex, sexuality and sexual regulation
• Pornography and prostitution
• Deformity, disability and ‘other’ bodies

You will be expected to do some general reading to familiarise yourself with the early modern world if you have not previously studied the period (a reading list will be provided). Seminars will include a range of teaching and learning methods such as individual and group presentations and group discussions. The co-requisite module (Sources) will concentrate on the historical sources available for detailed analysis of the subject so complementing this module. The seminars will focus on exploring key issues in the study of the body to place them in historical context allowing you to develop your skills and knowledge more fully. You will be expected to prepare for seminars by reading and evaluating examples of modern historical writing on the body and related subjects and will discuss the questions and issues raised in the seminar itself.

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

• Feher, Michel (ed. with Naddaff, Ramona and Tazi, Nadia), Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Parts One, Two and Three (New York: Zone Books, 1989).
• Fisher, Kate and Sarah Toulalan (eds), Bodies, Sex and Desire from the Renaissance to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
• Gent, Lucy and Nigel Llewellyn (eds), Renaissance Bodies: the Human Figure in English Culture, c.1540-1660 (London: Reaktion, 1990).
• Hillman, David and Mazzio, Carla (eds.), The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).
• Hunt, Lynn, (ed.), The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500-1800 (New York: Zone Books, 1993).
• Porter, Roy and Hall, Lesley, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 
  1650-1950 (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1995).
• Sawday, Jonathan, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture, (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).
• Toulalan, Sarah and Kate Fisher (eds.), The Routledge History of Sex and the Body in the West, 1500 to the present (Oxford and New York, 2013).
• Turner, David and Kevin Stagg (eds), Social Histories of Disability and Deformity: Bodies, Images and Experiences (London: Routledge, 2006).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2140
• English Broadside Ballad Archive – http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/
• The Proceedings of the Old Bailey – http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
• London Lives – http://londonlives.org/

Key words search

Body; bodies; sex; sexualities; gender; medicine; health; anatomy; pregnancy; childbirth; prostitution; pornography; deformity; disability