Module description
This module is designed to enhance student learning in anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) theory and its relevance to analysing medicine. It aims to equip students with an understanding of how medical policy and practice is imbricated in other disciplines and arenas such as law, economics, and popular representations (advertising, news reporting, etc.).
Specifically, the module aims to:
- Expand and hone student learning on the concepts and values inherent to medicine as a science and practice; to challenge the notion of objectivity as “value-free” and understand its historical roots.
- Further develop, at the senior undergraduate level, participants' critical awareness and appreciation of theories of anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), and gain practice in applying these to real-world scenarios, such as legal and historical disputes and how truth comes to be articulated from controversies.
- Delve into key debates in medicine - including vaccines, cancer treatment, and illnesses related to industrial modes of production - and to gain skills in understanding the stakes of such debates, the forms available for debate and adjudication, and how they inflect practice, policy, and experience.
Assessment details
1 x 500 Word Essay Outline (30%)
1 x 2,500 Word Final Essay (70%)
Educational aims & objectives
- To expand on and hone student learning on the concepts and values inherent in medicine as a science and practice; to challenge the notion of objectivity and understand its history and cultural roots.
- To further develop, at the senior undergraduate level, participants' critical awareness and appreciation of theories of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and gain practice in applying these to real-world scenarios, such as legal and historical disputes.
- To delve into key debates in medicine, including vaccines, cancer treatment, and illnesses related to industrial modes of production and to gain skills in understanding the stakes of such debates and their historical and political grounding.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
- Explain and analyse some of the ways that scientific knowledge and objectivity are inflected with value judgements.
- Have a developing understanding of, and insight into, how epistemology, or ways of knowling, affects the politics of medicine.
- Offer reasoned critique and defence of specific medical and evidence-based practices, such as randomized controlled trials, vaccine policy, and cancer prevention.
Teaching pattern
TBC