Program Overview

Course Overview

Course Details

The course code for Disease and History is HIST*3310, section 01, and it is offered during the Winter 2023 term. The course instructor is Tara Abraham.

Method of Delivery

The course is delivered through two 80-minute lectures per week.

Course Synopsis

This course explores the complex roles that disease has played in human history from the Middle Ages to COVID-19. It examines how understandings of health and disease have changed over time, shaped by social, cultural, and political contexts, and how these spheres are in turn shaped by disease. Through close analysis of primary and secondary readings, the course pays attention to the interplay between social and cultural responses to disease and the professional and institutional contexts of medicine and medical knowledge. Case studies of epidemic diseases help observe how they have divided human populations and cultures, but also how they have tied human populations together. Topics include social diseases, disease and colonialism, disease and commerce, public health, the rise of scientific medicine, disease and war, global health, poverty, modern pandemics, and disease and women.

Learning Outcomes

• Through lectures, readings, and discussions, to understand the complex relations between epidemic disease, medical practitioners, and society throughout history.
• Through independent research and writing, to develop skills in critical and creative thinking and written communication of ideas about disease and history.
• Through class discussions and presentations, to gain skills in oral communication and presentation of scholarly work.
• To appreciate the temporal dimensions of epidemic diseases according to place and context.
• To understand the central tools and techniques in the discipline of history broadly.

Prerequisites

None.

Method of Evaluation and Weights

• Class Participation - 15%
• Research Proposal - 5%
• Research Essay - 25%
• Critical Evaluation Assignment (in pairs) - 15%
• Primary Source Book Response [Defoe or Maxwell] - 15%
• Take-Home Final Exam - 25%

Texts Required

• Mitchell L. Hammond, Epidemics and the Modern World (Toronto, 2020).
• Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin, 2011).
• William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows (Vintage, 1997).
• A set of online readings through Ares, the University of Guelph's online Course Reserve system.

Departments and Schools

• School of Theatre, English, and Creative Writing
• School of Fine Art and Music
• School of Languages and Literatures
• Department of History
• Department of Philosophy
• Interdisciplinary Programs

Centres, Institutes and Labs

• Centre for Scottish Studies
• Grounded and Engaged Theory Lab (GET)
• Interdisciplinary Design Lab
• The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation
• The Humanities Interdisciplinary Collaboration Lab (THINC)
• The School of Fine Art & Music Print Study Collection