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

This module introduces students to important sociological understandings about the body and embodiment from across disability studies, sociology of the body and others. 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 - as the repository for social meaning. We also engage with the digital age to explore body's role in the evolving social and technological landscape.

Extend students understandings of key concepts, theorists and perspectives about the body.
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.
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.: 1,2
Review the historical reality of the human body in the context of theories of social construction and power relations.: 1,2
Discuss the tension between the natural and sociological body through discussion of various social and asocial contexts.
: 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.: 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.: 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.: 1,2

Study hours

Active learning hours:
20 contact hours include 10 lectures and 10 seminars
40 hours of set guided asynchronous online activity via engagement with key readings, audio/video content, and online post/blog.
Independent study:
30 hours of Independent learning
60 hours of assessment preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment