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Madness and Society in the Modern Age

Course unit fact file
Unit code UCIL30332
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 3
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Offered by Centre for History of Science, Technology & Medicine (L5)
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This unit introduces you to the social, cultural, intellectual and institutional history of madness, psychiatry and mental health. Through lectures, interactive workshops and reading a combination of primary sources and secondary analyses, you will gain an appreciation of:

  • How madness has been understood, by experts and by everyday people
  • How madness has been managed, socially and institutionally
  • How science, medicine, and culture interact in shaping responses to madness

Our focus is primarily on the period 1780 to the present, and primarily on the UK, but with some discussion of Western Europe and North America.

 

Aims

This unit explores the history of madness and psychiatry from the late eighteenth century to the present. It examines how insanity has been understood, treated, and represented within larger social, cultural, and intellectual frameworks. It also relates changing ideas and approaches to mental illness, health, and functioning to larger questions in the history of the medical and biological sciences.

 

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the unit, you will be able to:

  •  Identify historical approaches to medical thinking and practice
  • Describe how approaches to madness changed from 1780 onwards, including changing definitions of both mental health and insanity
  •  Analyse historians' arguments, through exploration of primary sources and historical data
  • Contribute to informed group discussions and debate, including presenting your own arguments effectively
  • Write a short, structured report/essay combining a range of viewpoints
  • Research and write a review essay incorporating both primary sources and secondary literature, and integrating historical medical and social contexts 

 

 

Syllabus

Topics covered in previous years:

  • The Birth of the Asylum
  • The Expansion of the Asylum
  • Theorising Insanity: Minds and Bodies
  • Gender, Madness and Society
  • Race, Madness and Colonial Psychiatry
  • Freud, Psychoanalysis and Culture
  • Shell Shock, Psychiatry and War
  • The Normal and the Difficult Child
  • The Psychiatrisation of Everyday Life

 

 

Teaching and learning methods

12 x 1 hour lectures

12 x 1 hour workshop seminars

Individual supervision sessions (optional)

Independent study

Employability skills

Analytical skills
Essays and workshop discussions require research and analysis of information
Group/team working
Weekly workshops require students to work and discuss together in small groups
Research
Students expected to engage in their own independent research for essays

Assessment methods

1.     1000 word essay (25%)

2.     Exam (25%)

3.     3000 word project report (50%)

 

Feedback methods

Students will receive individual feedback on all of their written assignments as well as general feedback given to the whole class.

Recommended reading

Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Scull, Andrew. Madness in Cicilization: From the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015.

Shorter, Edward. A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. Chichester: Wiley, 1997.

Zaretsky, Eli. Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis. New York: Vintage Books, 2005.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Assessment written exam 2
Lectures 12
Seminars 12
Independent study hours
Independent study 174

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Carsten Timmermann Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Madness and Society is offered through the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine http://www.chstm.manchester.ac.uk/