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Famines

Module description

This module isn’t just about famines in modern history. It’s about how the threat of famines shaped the modern state, family size and sexuality, our eating habits, and our attitudes towards the environment and the climate crisis. The subject matter is serious but the seminars will have you playing survival games at subsistence farming, reading bad science fiction, and engaging with everything from economic theory to collective memory to try and understand how famine has—until now—evaded every human effort to eradicate it. This module reintroduces you to modernity—its hungry side.

No prior knowledge of famine history or environmental history is required to take the module, but coming to the module with an openness to reading a variety of sources from testimonies and lived experiences to economic analyses is encouraged.

Module aims - intentions of the module

• Compare and contrast famines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
• Scrutinise the morality of famine response and relief effort.
• Understand the medical and environmental explanations of famine and hunger during this period.
• Develop a global comprehension of famines both within and beyond the confines of Europe.
• Enhance academic writing skills;
• Enhance skills in independently selecting and processing secondary sources;
• Enhance skills in interpreting, discussing, and orally presenting primary sources. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Critically evaluate different historiographical approaches to famine, including economic, environmental, cultural, and medical.
• 2. Develop skills to assess the proximate causes of famine by drawing upon economic theory.
• 3. Assess the role played by collective memory and national identity in historical enquiry.
• 4. Understand how famines furthered the development of economics and allied sciences.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 5. Interpret, discuss, and present primary sources, in writing and orally
• 6. Enrich the spectrum of primary sources from written ones to objects and other material

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Actively participate in seminar discussions and orally present research to a group
• 8. Define a question, locate sources, conduct research, and present research in clear and cogently reasoned writing

Syllabus plan

The precise plan will vary by the year but the module will usually include the topics and themes listed below:

• Famines in Bengal under the East India Company (1770 onwards)
• Lean years, famine, and dearth in Europe
• Famine, revolution, and food in France
• Famine in early modern China and Japan
• Provisioning the West Indies: Enslavement and Food
• Redundant people, starving people, and work in Ireland
• Famine and gender
• Volcanoes, droughts, and little ice ages: environmental histories of famine
• The end of famine? Food security in the 21^st century

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

The re-assessment consists of a 3000-word written assignment, as in the original assessment, but replaces participation in the group presentation with an individual presentation equivalent to an individual’s contribution, to be recorded and submitted with all supporting materials as for the original assessment; failing this, students should submit a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation (750 words)  along with all supporting materials as for the original assessment 

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

• Ó Gráda, C., Famine: A Short History, Princeton University Press, 2009
• Bandopadhyay, S. (2022). All Is Well: Catastrophe and the Making of the Normal State (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
• XUN, ZHOU. Forgotten Voices of Mao’s Great Famine, 1958-1962: An Oral History. Yale University Press, 2013.
• Alex De Waal, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, London (2018)
• Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, Oxford: OUP (1981)
• Jean Dreze, Famine Prevention in India, The Political Economy of Hunger: Volume 2: Famine Prevention, 1991
• Alfani, G., &Ó Gráda, C. (2017). Famine in European History (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Damodaran, V., Winterbottom, A., & Lester, A. (2014). The East India Company and the Natural World (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Key words search

Famine, Environmental History, Economic, India, Irish History, History of Medicine, Food History, Global History