Social Studies of Medicine Minor Concentration (B.A.) (18 credits)
Offered by: Social Studies of Medicine (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences)
Degree: Bachelor of Arts; Bachelor of Arts and Science
Program credit weight: 18
Program Description
The Minor Concentration in Social Studies of Medicine presents as a complex network of institutions, cultures, and political relations embedded in the institutions, cultures and political relations of the larger society. Courses are divided into three groups: History of Medicine, Anthropology of Medicine, and Sociology of Medicine. The Minor consists of 18 credits. Students are required to take at least one course in each of the three groups.
Note: No overlap is permitted with courses counting towards the student’s major concentration.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Complementary Courses (18 credits)
18 credits from the following (at least 3 credits from each of the three groups):
History of Medicine
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| HIST 249 | Health and the Healer in Western History. | 3 |
Health and the Healer in Western History. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The natural history of health and disease and the development of the healing arts, from antiquity to the beginning of modern times. The rise of "western" medicine. Health and healing as gradually evolving aspects of society and culture. | ||
| HIST 319 | The Scientific Revolution. | 3 |
The Scientific Revolution. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The intellectual and cultural history of science and technology, in Europe and in the wider world, from the time of Leonardo to the time of Newton (c. 1500-c.1700). | ||
| HIST 335 | Science and Medicine in Canada. | 3 |
Science and Medicine in Canada. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The social and intellectual history of science and medicine in Canada, from early exploration, through the rise of learned societies, universities and professional organizations, to World War II. | ||
| HIST 356 | Medicine in the Medieval West. | 3 |
Medicine in the Medieval West. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The history of ideas about the human body, disease and therapeutics and the diverse practices of medicine in western Europe in the Middle Ages (ca. AD 300-1500), with particular attention to their social, intellectual, cultural and religious context. | ||
| HIST 381 | Colonial Africa. | 3 |
Colonial Africa. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of the history of foreign intervention and anticolonial resistance in 19th and 20th century Africa. Topics include: theories of colonialism, the scramble for Africa, colonialism and disease, indirect rule, labour, nationalism and resistance, and changing gender roles. | ||
| HIST 424 | Gender, Sexuality and Medicine. | 3 |
Gender, Sexuality and Medicine. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Gender, sexuality, and medicine since the colonial era, with a focus on North American experience. Topics will include reproductive medicine (puberty, childbirth, fertility control, menopause), changing perceptions of men's and women's health needs and risks, and ideas about sexual behaviour and identity. | ||
| HIST 430 | Topics in Modern Medicine. | 3 |
Topics in Modern Medicine. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Selected topics in the history of medicine in the 19th, 20th and/or 21st centuries will be explored through discussion of primary and secondary historical sources. | ||
| HIST 449 | Medicine in the Ancient World. | 3 |
Medicine in the Ancient World. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The evolution of ideas about the human body, disease, and therapeutics, and the diverse practices of medicine in Graeco-Roman antiquity (ca 800BC - ca 600CE), with particular attention given to their social, political, cultural and religious context. | ||
| HIST 452 | Topics in Pre-Modern Medicine. | 3 |
Topics in Pre-Modern Medicine. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The history of the evolution of ideas about the human body, disease and therapeutics and the diverse practices of medicine prior to the advent of modern clinical and laboratory medicine in the 19th c., with particular attention to social, political, cultural and religious context. | ||
| HIST 457 | Topics in Medical History. | 3 |
Topics in Medical History. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course explores different topics in medical history. Topics to be explored include the role of medicine from ancient to modern times. | ||
| HIST 558 | Modern Medicine: Seminar. | 3 |
Modern Medicine: Seminar. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The emergence of scientific medicine, medical professionalization, the development of public health and the process of medical specialization since 1700. | ||
| HIST 559 | Modern Medicine: Research. | 3 |
Modern Medicine: Research. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Supervised design, research, writing, and discussion of a major research paper on a theme in the history of modern medicine since 1700. | ||
| HIST 567D1 | Seminar: Medieval Medicine. | 3 |
Seminar: Medieval Medicine. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Models of the body, disease and medical intervention current in western Europe between 400 and 1500 AD will be examined through analysis of primary sources in translation, and modern historical scholarship. | ||
| HIST 567D2 | Seminar: Medieval Medicine. | 3 |
Seminar: Medieval Medicine. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Models of the body, disease and medical intervention current in western Europe between 400 and 1500 AD will be examined through analysis of primary sources in translation, and modern historical scholarship. The sequel to this course is HIST 496. | ||
Anthropology of Medicine
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH 227 | Medical Anthropology. | 3 |
Medical Anthropology. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Beliefs and practices concerning sickness and healing are examined in a variety of Western and non-Western settings. Special attention is given to cultural constructions of the body and to theories of disease causation and healing efficacy. Topics include international health, medical pluralism, transcultural psychiatry, and demography. | ||
| ANTH 302 | New Horizons in Medical Anthropology. | 3 |
New Horizons in Medical Anthropology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Using recent ethnographies as textual material, this course will cover theoretical and methodological developments in medical anthropology since the early 1990's. Topics include a reconsideration of the relationship between culture and biology, medical pluralism revisited, globalization and health and disease, and social implications of new biomedical technologies. | ||
| ANTH 314 | Psychological Anthropology 01. | 3 |
Psychological Anthropology 01. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A survey of current theories and methods employed in psychological anthropology. Some areas considered are: cross-cultural studies of socialization and personality development; cultural factors in mental illness; individual adaptations to rapid socio-cultural change. | ||
| ANTH 325 | Anthropology of the Self. | 3 |
Anthropology of the Self. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A review of the anthropological problematization of the self. The course examines ethnographically how illness, mental illness, pharmaceuticals, psychoanalysis, possession, death, violence and colonization disrupt our commonsense notions of the self and its relation to the other. | ||
| ANTH 407 | Anthropology of the Body. | 3 |
Anthropology of the Body. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course will survey theoretical approaches used over the past 100 years, and then focus on contemporary debates using case studies. The nature/culture mind/ body, subject/object, self/other dichotomies central to most work of the body will be problematized. | ||
| ANTH 408 | 3 | |
Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. | ||
| ANTH 423 | Mind, Brain and Psychopathology. | 3 |
Mind, Brain and Psychopathology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Evolutionary origins of the human mind and the 'social brain', and the psychopathologies that are said to provide access to this evolutionary history, through the perspective of the anthropology of science and psychiatry. | ||
| ANTH 438 | Topics in Medical Anthropology. | 3 |
Topics in Medical Anthropology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Conceptions of health and illness and the form and meaning that illness take are reflections of a particular social and cultural context. Examination of the metaphoric use of the body, comparative approaches to healing, and the relationship of healing systems to the political and economic order and to development. | ||
| ANTH 480 | Special Topic 5. | 3 |
Special Topic 5. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Supervised reading in advanced special topics under direction of a member of staff. | ||
| ANTH 481 | Special Topic 6. | 3 |
Special Topic 6. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Supervised reading in advanced special topics under direction of a member of staff. | ||
Sociology of Medicine
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| SOCI 225 | Medicine and Health in Modern Society. | 3 |
Medicine and Health in Modern Society. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Socio-medical problems and ways in which sociological analysis and research are being used to understand and deal with them. Canadian and Québec problems include: poverty and health; mental illness; aging; death and dying; professionalism; health service organization. | ||
| SOCI 309 | Health and Illness. | 3 |
Health and Illness. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Health and illness as social rather than purely bio-medical phenomena. Topics include: studies of ill persons, health care occupations and organizations; poverty and health; inequalities in access to and use of health services; recent policies, ideologies, and problems in reform of health services organization. | ||
| SOCI 310 | Sociology of Mental Health. | 3 |
Sociology of Mental Health. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Three broad areas of sociological research on mental health and illness: definitions and measurement; social origins; and societal responses. Mental health and illness as a product of social circumstances. | ||
| SOCI 365 | Health and Development. | 3 |
Health and Development. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Main concepts and controversies linking health to broader social and economic conditions in low income countries. Topics include the demographic and epidemiological transitions, the health and wealth conundrum, the social determinants of health, health as an economic development strategy, and the impact of the AIDS pandemic. | ||
| SOCI 390 | Gender and Health. | 3 |
Gender and Health. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Key conceptual and substantive issues in gender and health since c1950: stratified medicalization of women's and men's health; social movements in health including the women's health movement; gender inequality in morbidity and mortality; gender, power and control in patient/physician interactions; embodied experience; politics and policies of gender and health. | ||
| SOCI 508 | Medical Sociology and Social Psychiatry. | 3 |
Medical Sociology and Social Psychiatry. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The social construction of mental illness and disease, the personal and professional definition and recognition of illness, the distribution and determinants of illness, disease, sickness in the population, and the politics of medical research. | ||
| SOCI 515 | Medicine and Society. | 3 |
Medicine and Society. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The sociology of health and illness. Reading in areas of interest, such as: the sociology of illness, health services occupations, organizational settings of health care, the politics of change in national health service systems, and contemporary ethical issues in medical care and research. | ||
| SOCI 525 | Health Care Systems in Comparative Perspective. | 3 |
Health Care Systems in Comparative Perspective. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Comparative perspective to illustrate processes involved in the development and evolution of health care systems around the world. Countries examined will represent different welfare state regimes, health care system typologies, levels of development and wealth. | ||
| SOCI 538 | Selected Topics in Sociology of Biomedical Knowledge. | 3 |
Selected Topics in Sociology of Biomedical Knowledge. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The seminar will examine recent work in the sociology of biomedical knowledge. It will focus on the technological shaping of biomedical knowledge, i.e., on the impact of new technologies and equipments on the development of biomedical knowledge. | ||
| SOCI 588 | Biosociology/Biodemography. | 3 |
Biosociology/Biodemography. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course will explore linkages between social and biological systems, their influence on health and well-being over the life course, and on health disparities. Topics include classical sociological approaches to biosocial processes, sociobiology (reductionist, but population-based), and newer demographic studies on gen-environment, epigenetic, and stress-metabolic/allostatic processes. | ||