HR230-5-AU-CO:
Pandemics: Lessons from History
2020/21
History
Colchester Campus
Autumn
Undergraduate: Level 5
Current
Thursday 08 October 2020
Friday 18 December 2020
15
22 February 2021
Requisites for this module
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This module is an urgent response to a contemporary crisis: the COVID pandemic that has affected all of us. It focuses upon six great pandemics – bubonic plague (the so-called 'Black Death'), small pox, cholera, the Great Flu, HIV/Aids – exploring their histories, how they were responded to, and how they shaped the societies that fell victim to them. The module closes with a consideration of the COVID pandemic through which we are living and places it within the framework developed by the module. Throughout, students are required to explore how pandemics are an unforgiving searchlight into the nature of the societies that they strike, exposing weaknesses and strengths, the nature of divisions, as well as manifold political, economic, social and cultural phenomena. Some of these have been disturbingly constant: for example, the blaming and persecution of out-groups (Jews during the Black Death, gays and African minorities during the AIDS epidemic); or the use of the crises to engineer restructurings and policies desired by the powerful. Other phenomena disclose a more hopeful pattern: forms of cooperation, solidarity and action which take different forms in different societies and periods, but which all point towards a desire to ensure collective survival and understanding.
To provide students with perspectives and frameworks derived from the history of pandemics that will help them to understand the phenomena, responses and experiences that have struck them and their societies; secondly, to reveal the centrality of the discipline of history to understanding and, indeed, to fashioning appropriate and effective responses to modern-day problems and crises. Finally, to reveal how pandemics are one of the great and recurring lightning storms of history – illuminating profound connections between peoples and societies, while exposing hierarchies, inequalities, solidarities, and the very nature of existing orders and power structures
1. The fashioning of a historically-informed analytical framework to understand the impact and implications of pandemics in the past and present.
2. The critical appreciation of key scholarship relating to pandemics.
3. A broad understanding of continuities and contrasts in response to pandemics in different periods and societies.
For introductory reading, see:
Nancy Brisow, American Pandemic. The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel.
William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples.
Laura Spinney, Pale Rider. The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World.
World Health Organisation AIDS: Images of the Epidemic.
Hans Zinnser, Rats, Lice and History.
These will take the form of lectures and seminars, with some occasional showing of films.
This module does not appear to have any essential texts. To see non-essential items, please refer to the module's reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Document analysis (1500 words) |
|
40% |
| Coursework |
Essay (2500 words) |
|
60% |
Additional coursework information
Anticipated coursework assessment for 2020/21:
A 1500-word critical review (40%); and a 2500-word essay (60%).
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Prof Jeremy Krikler, email: krikjm@essex.ac.uk.
Belinda Waterman, Department of History, 01206 872313
Yes
Yes
No
Dr Simon Rofe
University of London
Reader in Diplomatic and International Studies
Available via Moodle
Of 887 hours, 8 (0.9%) hours available to students:
879 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s).
History
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