MSci Pharmacology / Course details

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

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

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.

This unit aims to introduce students to the history of mental illness 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 and discusses the impact of this history on the modern world.

Students 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.
• Understand how the history of mental illness has shaped today's approaches to mental health.
• Analyse historians' arguments, through discussion of secondary literature and exploration of primary sources and historical data.
• Recognise and understand key historiographical approaches in the history of madness and mental health.
• Contribute to informed group discussions and debate, including presenting your own arguments effectively.
• Write a short, structured text combining a range of viewpoints.
• Produce a blog post or podcast discussing the impact of a topic in the history of madness on the modern world.

The course meets twice a week, for a lecture delivered by the course convenor, and a seminar led by a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Each lecture will introduce a topic and set out the key information and historiographical framework. Lecture slides will be available for download. The lectures will be delivered live on campus, but pre-recorded lectures will also be available via the online Central Learning Environment. Live lectures will be recorded automatically, and the automatic recordings (whatever is showing on the screen plus audio) will be available shortly after the end of the lecture via the University Video Portal.

Seminars will use secondary readings and primary source materials that build on the week’s lecture. All required reading will be made available online. Reading guides will also be available for most sessions, to guide your reading and give you additional background information and suggested resources as you prepare for seminar. Most seminar sessions involve small group discussion and collaboration. Additional optional materials will be available online, along with lists of further reading for in-depth study. Individual supervision sessions, especially but not exclusively for the research essay, can be booked with the unit convenor.

Students should/will be able to:

• Describe how approaches to madness changed from 1780 onwards, including changing definitions of both mental health and insanity. 
• Understand how the history of mental illness has shaped today's approaches to mental health. 
• Recognise and understand key historiographical approaches in the history of madness and mental health. 

Students should/will be able to:

• Identify historical approaches to medical thinking and practice. 
• Analyse historians' arguments, through discussion of secondary literature and exploration of primary sources and historical data. 

Students should/will be able to:

• Independently research new topics by identifying, organising, and synthesising relevant evidence from various sources (including library, electronic and online resources). 
• Exercise evidence-based persuasiveness in oral and written communication. 
• Exercise project management skills including time and delivery of work to deadlines. 

Students should/will be able to:

• Have gained experience discussing varied historical events and working in teams toward collective ends to understand complex issues around mental health and society in historical context.
• Be able to analyse and communicate confidently on why scientific, medical and societal understandings of mental health have changed over time.

Short Essay (Historically Informed Creative Writing) 50%

Blog post or podcast 50%

Oral feedback will be provided during face-to-face teaching activities and individual oral feedback will be available where students attend pre-booked meetings.

Written feedback will be provided on all assessments and on include advice on improving future performance.

Students will be encouraged throughout to feed in to course content and activities through oral or written feedback (e.g. padlets embedded in UoM online Central Learning Environment). Students will have the opportunity to shape future development of the course through the end of course unit survey.

• Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Scull, Andrew. Madness in Civilization: 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.

HSTM units are designed to be accessible to all undergraduate students from all disciplines. They assume no prior experience.

The HSTM portfolio offers a range of 'free choice' units, see The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Undergraduate teaching for further information. Led by experienced researchers, our teaching explores science as part of human culture, demonstrating that history is a valuable tool for understanding the present state and possible future of science, technology and medicine.

If you are unsure whether you are able to enrol on any of the HSTM units you should contact your School Programme and Curriculum team. You may wish to contact your programme director if your programme does not currently allow you to take a HSTM unit.

You can also contact the Academic Lead for Undergraduate teaching at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.

This unit is offered in both 10-credit and 20-credit versions to meet the requirements of different programme structures across the University. Students will be able to choose the version appropriate to their programme.

10 Credit - HSTM30832

20 Credit - HSTM40332