Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

To introduce students to sociological and anthropological understandings of embodied health, and to investigate how health is lived, experienced and conveyed through our bodies.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module will engage with five interrelated themes: embodied identities; contested knowledge; notions of difference and diversity; narrated 'selves' and narrated 'others'; and social, cultural and moral values.

Related theoretical concepts will be explored across the module including: embodiment and embodied practices; narratives of health and illness; social and cultural identities; and notions of authority, voice and resistance.

Key examples, primarily from relevant ethnographic, in-depth research, will be drawn on to encourage students to explore the complex issues at stake in this hotly debated arena.

The module will be based around directed reading as the backbone for student-led critical discussions, supported through formal lectures.

Session 1 - Introduction: health and body as social concerns
Session 2 - Narratives of health: implications for the body
Session 3 - Multiple bodies: implications for health
Session 4 - Maintaining, monitoring and surveillance
Session 5 - Reading 'health' on the body
Session 6 - Locating 'health' within the body
Session 7 - Unequal bodies, unequal health?
Session 8 - Health consumers and ethical questions
Session 9 - Focus on assignment
Session 10 - Overview and future directions

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

• Awareness of key issues in notions of embodied health.

• Understanding of both theoretical and methodological arguments underpinning debates in social and cultural constructions of health and the body.

• An in-depth appreciation of a contemporary area of concern related to health and the body.

Intended Skill Outcomes

This module will develop skills of critical thinking through seminars and writing. It will develop students' capacities to: read, critically evaluate and synthesise material from different sources; express independence and critical thinking in embodied health; devise coherent, substantiated arguments with regard to cutting-edge sociological study; critically assess, present and summarise social science data; and explore the insights and limitations of social science perspectives on embodied health. It will also refine students' skills of verbal and written communication and debate.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The mixture of lectures and student-led group discussions are the best way to introduce complex theoretical concepts alongside empirical examples; while encouraging students to gain confidence both with the set reading, and to develop their own relevant area/s of interest necessary for critical and independent thought in relation to sociological debates.

Teaching sessions resources are flexibly designed to incorporate a wide range of methods, including lecture input, seminar discussion, workshops, student presentations, film screenings, as appropriate to the material and in response to the needs of the student group. Teaching groups are small enough to enable discussion which can include significant amounts of formative feedback.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Students are required to submit an essay which will assess their understanding of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological frameworks explored in lectures, seminars and independent study. The assessment will enable students to apply their developing knowledge and understanding of a specialist topic to wider sociological concerns, including students’ own substantive sociological interests.

General Notes

N/A