Undergraduate Course: Illness and Society in the Medieval Mediterranean (HIST10482)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | This course will examine approaches to illnesses, and various factors, such as social, scientific, and religious, that shaped medical understanding in a variety of premodern Mediterranean medical traditions, including the Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, and Latin, between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. It will also explore the connections of Mediterranean cultures with other traditions in the Middle and Far East, thus considering the wider global implications in the fields of medical theory and practice. |
| Course description |
This course will introduce students to key debates in the history of medicine in the medieval Mediterranean from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, through critical analysis of a wide range of primary sources, both written and archaeological. It will examine different approaches to illness and healing in their social, cultural, and political context in various premodern medical traditions, including the Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, and Latin. It will thus enable students to explore the relationship between medicine and religion, the evolving role of states and local governments for public health, changing understandings of the body and disease, and broader historical issues such as the continuity of tradition and the cultural transfers between the Mediterranean and the wider Eurasia. Assessments will develop skills in critical thinking and source analysis.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Administrator to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 504030). |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Contextualise and evaluate various medical approaches to illness in the medieval Mediterranean in terms of their wider social, political and cultural settings;
- Critically discuss broader historical notions of continuity, transmission, and transformation of medical theories and practices;
- Understand, evaluate, and discuss critically a variety of primary and secondary sources;
- Identify key historical questions and develop scholarly arguments in written and oral form;
- Demonstrate independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
|
Reading List
W. Black, Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West (Peterborough, 2020).
P. Bouras-Vallianatos and B. Zipser, eds., Brill's Companion to the Reception of Galen (Leiden, 2019).
P. Bouras-Vallianatos, Innovation in Byzantine Medicine: The Writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330) (Oxford, 2020).
S. Cohn, Jr, Cultures of Plague (Oxford, 2010).
L. Conrad, M. Neve, V. Nutton, R. Porter, and A. Wear, eds, The Western Medical Tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800 (Cambridge, 1995).
L. Demaitre, Medieval Medicine: The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe (Santa Barbara, California, 2013).
M. Grmek (ed.), Western Medical Thought (Boston, 1998).
M. Jackson, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford, 2011).
V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine (London, 2013).
P. Pormann & E. Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh, 2007).
N. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago, 1990).
F. Wallis, Medieval Medicine: A Reader (Toronto, 2010). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The ability to provide clear and oral analyses based on historical argumentation;
The ability to formulate research questions and deliver answers through critical engagement with primary and secondary sources;
The ability to work independently and as part of a pair or larger group. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
Tel: (0131 6)50 6693
Email: petros.bouras-vallianatos@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
|
|
University Homepage