SOC-20035 - Module Specification
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

Looking at the body through a sociological lens allows us to further question the nature/culture and biological/social dichotomies; it also allows us to examine the ways in which the body is constructed as a key site of social division and exclusion; further, the body can be read as a cultural and social text $ú as the repository for social meaning. Using examples of contemporary bodily practice, a wide range of visual material demonstrating the importance of 'looking' at bodies in contemporary culture and exploring some of the ethical dilemmas in managing bodies, this module seeks to demonstrate the centrality of a socio-cultural notion of bodies.
The lectures will focus on areas such as
Bodily exclusions: Sport, gender and ethnicity
Bodily image &eating disorders
Body management
Specularity: the body as an object in vision
Michel Foucault and the disciplined body
Body modification
Body parts as commodities: the ethics of trade
The Ageing Body
Posthuman bodies $ú an accommodation between the social and the $ùmaterial&© $ö.?
Formative Assessment and Tutorial Activities
Each session will include some delivered content, including lectures, KLE content, film/slide shows; in addition there will be group presentations by students, group discussion and additional online/tutorial activities.
Students complete a presentation on a topic related to the course and their likely essay topic.

• Extend students understandings of key concepts in social science
  
• Develop students understandings of social construction in the context of the study of the human body
  
• Present clear arguments about particular research topics on the body
  
• Develop skills of exposition and scholarly discussion and to have these evaluated
  
• Enhance their ability to link concepts and evidence in social science within a broadly comparative framework

Intended Learning Outcomes

Explain theories of social construction and critically relate these to lived realities, specifically, but not exclusively, relating to the human body. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Deploy the notion of social construction to analyze the constructed nature of the human body in a variety of theoretical and real world contexts. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Review the historical reality of the human body in the context of theories of social construction and power relations. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Discuss the tension between the natural and sociological body through discussion of various social and asocial contexts.
will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Analyse the constructedness of the body to broad social theories of inequality, division, and stratification. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Review the ways in which social inequality, division, and stratification are inscribed upon the imagined and lived body in diverse and complex ways. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2
Demonstrate mobility of thought by employing concepts and theories beyond their first context in order to solve problems in a limited period of time. will be achieved by assessments: 1

Study hours

20 hours contact time
60 hours tutorial preparation
70 hours assessment preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment