HIS42860 The Body in Modern Warfare

Academic Year 2023/2024

This seminar explores modern warfare as a bodily experience. Through case studies stretching from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, students will examine the impact of war on the bodies and minds of combatants and civilians. Topics covered will include military training, the experience of battle, injury and disease, interpersonal violence, questions of gender and sexuality, boredom and discipline, war crimes, hunger and scarcity, the physical impacts of technology, mass death and societies in mourning, and the lingering aftereffects of war, especially for disabled and severely wounded veterans. Students will read widely in the historical and social scientific literature, as well as examining an array of primary sources including military and medical documents, memoirs and diaries, photography and film, and art and literature.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course students will be able:
- to understand and analyse the manifold impacts of modern warfare on the human body
- to critically engage with a broad range of literature on the social, cultural, and medical history of modern warfare
- to complete a research project using substantial primary source material

Indicative Module Content:

Topics will include:
- Military training and creating soldiers
- The experience of combat
- Concepts of cowardice and bravery
- Masculinity, femininity, and violence
- Sex and venereal disease
- Rape as a weapon of war
- Intimacy and gender
- Dehumanising the enemy
- War crimes and torture
- Injury and military medicine
- Disability
- Hunger
- Shell shock, combat fatigue, and PTSD

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Seminar (or Webinar)

20
Specified Learning Activities

95
Autonomous Student Learning

95
Total

210
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This is a small-group, seminar-based module, taught through a two-hour weekly seminar. The seminar is focused on individual active, task-based learning by means of discussion and presentations. Advanced research and writing skills are developed through a research essay at the end of semester. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Essay: 5000 word research essay on a topic of the student's choice, developed in consultation with the lecturer. End of trimester MCQ n/a Graded No

50
Presentation: Presentation of a weekly reading/case study and leading that week’s discussion Varies over the Trimester n/a Graded No

20
Continuous Assessment: Class participation
 Throughout the Trimester n/a Graded No

30

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
 
Autumn
      
Seminar Offering 1 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Wed 14:00 - 15:50