Social Science Perspectives on Health and Medicine

Module description

This course introduces students to the changing nature of modern medicine. The key aim of the course is to offer insights into the emergence and evolution of modern medicine, its key actors and institutions, as well as discourses and practices. Health and disease are more than medical matters. They are shaped by social, cultural, political, and technological forces. Questions of health and disease are inextricably linked with questions of science, technology, modernity, religion, colonialism, capitalism, racism, globalization, humanitarianism, and the state.

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the social study of medicine. Its focus is on how medicine has transformed experiences and expectations of health and disease over the past decades. The course illuminates how new medical interventions into the biological conditions of bodies and populations were based on new understandings of the normal and the pathological.

Assessment details

• 1 x 1,000 Word Paper (40%)
• 1 x 2,000 Word Essay (60%)

Educational aims & objectives

To introduce students to the social study of medicine

• To provide students with an understanding of the most important actors, institutions,discourses, and practices that are characteristic of modern medicine
• To provide students with an understanding of the social, cultural, political, and technological forces that are shaping modern medicine
• To offer students the possibility to explore how questions of health and disease are linked with questions of science, technology, modernity, capitalism, and globalization
• To demonstrate the value of social scientific approaches to understanding medicine
• To provide insights into the empirical, methodological, and epistemological debates in the social study of medicine

Learning outcomes

By the end of this module students are expected to have acquired:

• An understanding of how modern medicine emerged and evolved
• An ability to identify the key forces that are impacting modern medicine
• An awareness of how the notion of the normal body operates in medical beliefs and practices
• A sensibility for the changing nature of today’s governance of health and disease

Teaching pattern

One weekly two-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar. 

Module description disclaimer

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis to provide up-to-date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. Therefore, modules offered may change. We suggest you keep an eye on the course finder on our website for updates.

Please note that modules with a practical component will be capped due to educational requirements, which may mean that we cannot guarantee a place to all students who elect to study this module.

Please note that the module descriptions above are related to the current academic year and are subject to change.