HIS2305 : War, Wounds, and Disabilities in Global Perspectives
- Offered for Year: 2026/27
- Available for Study Abroad and Exchange students, subject to School approval at module registration
- Module Leader(s): Dr Vicky Long
- Lecturer: Dr Robert Dale, Professor Susan-Mary Grant, Dr Jen Kain
- Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
- Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters
Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.
| Semester 1 Credit Value: | 20 |
| ECTS Credits: | 10.0 |
| European Credit Transfer System | |
Pre-requisite
Modules you must have done previously to study this module
Pre Requisite Comment
N/A
Co-Requisite
Modules you need to take at the same time
Co Requisite Comment
N/A
Aims
This module seeks to introduce second-year undergraduate students to the important and rapidly developing field of disability history and the many physical and psychological impacts of war on individuals and their societies. The focus is on Russia and the Soviet Union, Europe more broadly, the United States, the UK, and New Zealand. It explores social and medical reactions to the disabling effects of war on the bodies and minds of war combatants and their families, and the relationship between provisions for disabled civilians and disabled veterans.
Drawing on the contributors' research expertise, this module takes a comparative and thematic approach to disability. Special reference is paid to how war wounding and disability was constructed and experienced in the North American, Russian/Soviet, and British cases. Its frame of reference is, however, broader, reflecting the module team's expertise in how attitudes to disability shaped immigration control policies; the rise of the disability rights movement, and the history of PTSD.
Over the course of a programme of lectures and seminars, students will explore the multiple ways in which warfare maimed, injured, disfigured and impaired soldiers, and how veterans and the societies to which they returned classified, treated, compensated and cared for the war-disabled. Specific forms of disability, and how they were constructed and handled by different societies, will be considered. As well as exploring disabilities themselves, the module will explore institutional and domestic histories of care, issues of gender and masculinity, and the social experience of disability more broadly.
On successful completion of the module, students will be well-acquainted with the principal methods, approaches and sources that inform disability in a martial context, and be able to apply them to the specific focus of the module and to the present-day issues raised by conflict.
Outline Of Syllabus
Indicative contents:
• Nineteenth-Century War Wounded
• Medical Photographs and their Uses
• Psychological Trauma in Russia and the Soviet Union
• War Blindness, Deafness, and Plastic Surgery
• Reconstructing Faces and Voices
• Henry Ford and the Industrial Body
• Prosthetic Limbs and Support Structures in the Soviet Union
• Work, Rehabilitation, and Pensions
• Hierarchies of Wounds and Disability
• Disease and Fears of Contagion
• Policing the State in Russian and the Soviet Union
• The Able-Bodied and Empire
• The War Wounded in Film
• The Rise of a Social Disability Model in the UK
Teaching Methods
Teaching Activities
| Category | Activity | Number | Length | Student Hours | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities | Lecture | 22 | 1:00 | 22:00 | Two weekly lectures |
| Guided Independent Study | Assessment preparation and completion | 66 | 1:00 | 66:00 | For two assessments. |
| Guided Independent Study | Directed research and reading | 65 | 1:00 | 65:00 | Seminar preparation (reading). |
| Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities | Small group teaching | 11 | 1:00 | 11:00 | Weekly seminar |
| Guided Independent Study | Independent study | 36 | 1:00 | 36:00 | General consolidation activities. |
| Total | 200:00 |
Teaching Rationale And Relationship
1. LECTURES impart an outline of core knowledge that students are expected to acquire; raise questions for students to consider in private study, and stimulate development of listening and note-taking skills. They enable students to gain a wider sense of historical argument and debate, and how such debates operate, which also allows them to develop comparisons between different historiographical debates. We will also introduce students to primary source materials in lectures.
2. SEMINARS encourage independent study and promote improvements in oral presentation, interpersonal communication, problem-solving skills, research skills, and adaptability. We will use the seminars to discuss historiographical debates in the literature and the relationship between historiography and primary sources. Seminars provide an opportunity for students to test out ideas in small groups, raise questions, and check their understanding of key issues, debates, and texts.
Assessment Methods
The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners
Other Assessment
| Description | Semester | When Set | Percentage | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Written exercise | 1 | M | 20 | 500-word primary source analysis |
| Essay | 1 | A | 80 | 2000-word essay, analysing primary sources (including footnotes but excluding bibliography). |
Assessment Rationale And Relationship
The first summative assessment asks students to write a short analysis of a primary source relating to the module's themes, drawing on knowledge from secondary sources. It allows students to get feedback on their approach to analysing primary source materials in advance of the second, larger summative assessment.
The essay at the end of the module asks students to draw on primary source materials and secondary literature to develop a comparative analysis that examines the international dimensions of war wounding and disability. This allows students to demonstrate: knowledge of wider socio-cultural frameworks that shaped attitudes towards and experiences of disability; ability to use evidence and analyse primary source materials; competency in communicating ideas in written form.
Reading Lists
Timetable
- Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
- HIS2305's Timetable