Guide in PDF format
Logo

Body, Subject and Society

Code: 45760
Credits: 5
2026/2027
Degree programme Type Course
History of Science: History, Heritage and Scientific Communication OP 1

Contact lecturer

Name :
Monica Balltondre Pla
Email :
monica.balltondre@uab.cat

Teaching staff

Ruben Gomez Soriano
Anyely Marín Cisneros

Teaching staff (external to UAB)

Dolores Martín
Laura Sanmiguel
Andrea Graus Ferrer
Silvia Cora Levy Lazcano

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

None.

Objectives

This module addresses contemporary social issues related to the sciences of the mind (psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis) through the analytical tools provided by the historical study of the human sciences. It aims to familiarize students with, and enable them to engage critically with, historiographical approaches to the history of subjectivity, the body and experience, as well as scholarship on gender, masculinities, subalternity, ableism, and human-animal relations.

The objective is to encourage students to think about, communicate, and disseminate current issues concerning human beings in relation to the body, the mind, the self, emotions, gender, class, race, mental disorders, and sexuality. Drawing on a wide range of written sources (academic articles, novels, news reports, etc.) and audiovisual materials (documentaries, fiction films, etc.), and based on topics jointly agreed upon by the teaching staff and students, the module uses historical analysis to examine the power relations and inequalities that shape these issues.

Learning outcomes

  • CA30 (Explain to specialised and non-specialised audiences the historical role of psychology, psychiatry, and the human sciences in shaping systems of gender, class, and race relations.) Explain to specialised and non-specialised audiences the historical role of psychology, psychiatry, and the human sciences in shaping systems of gender, class, and race relations.
  • CA31 (Explain to specialised and non-specialised audiences the historical processes of medicalisation and psychologisation, identifying the different agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in them, and their relationship with the construction of modernity.) Explain to specialised and non-specialised audiences the historical processes of medicalisation and psychologisation, identifying the different agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in them, and their relationship with the construction of modernity.
  • KA30 (Describe stages, transformations, actors, spaces, objects, theories, experiments, practices, discourses and agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in the historical processes of medicalisation and psychologisation and their correspondence with current processes.) Describe stages, transformations, actors, spaces, objects, theories, experiments, practices, discourses and agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in the historical processes of medicalisation and psychologisation and their correspondence with current processes.
  • KA31 (Describe rigorously, from a historiographical point of view, the processes of medicalisation and psychologisation (material and symbolic) and how they have contributed to the construction of modernity and to the current tendency to codify social problems (including gender biases and inequalities of rights and opportunities) in pathological terms.) Describe rigorously, from a historiographical point of view, the processes of medicalisation and psychologisation (material and symbolic) and how they have contributed to the construction of modernity and to the current tendency to codify social problems (including gender biases and inequalities of rights and opportunities) in pathological terms.
  • KA32 (Rigorously describe the characteristics and consequences of the processes of medicalisation and psychopathologisation in relation to the mechanisms of legitimation of social control, the perception of health and disease, and self-perception.) Rigorously describe the characteristics and consequences of the processes of medicalisation and psychopathologisation in relation to the mechanisms of legitimation of social control, the perception of health and disease, and self-perception.
  • KA33 (Describe the theoretical and methodological tools of the discipline to problematise and denormalise sexuality.) Describe the theoretical and methodological tools of the discipline to problematise and denormalise sexuality.
  • SA28 (Identify the different agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in the processes of medicalisation and psychologisation, incorporating the dimensions of gender, race, class, materiality and power.) Identify the different agents, social processes and institutional mechanisms that have intervened in the processes of medicalisation and psychologisation, incorporating the dimensions of gender, race, class, materiality and power.
  • SA29 (Analyse in a rigorous and critical way from the historiographical point of view the current tendency to codify social problems in pathological terms.) Analyse in a rigorous and critical way from the historiographical point of view the current tendency to codify social problems in pathological terms.
  • SA30 (Apply the theoretical and technical tools of the history of science to think about the present and intervene in current debates on medicalisation and psychologisation processes.) Apply the theoretical and technical tools of the history of science to think about the present and intervene in current debates on medicalisation and psychologisation processes.

Contents


Sessions Titles Description
1 Introduction. Body, Mind, Gender and Class. Introduction to the Historiography of the Human Sciences. Proposal of a Case Study for the Collaborative Development of an Outreach Product.
2 The naturalization of Human Beings. History of Modern Naturalism (16th–19th Centuries) and Its Impact on the Human Sciences.
3 Psy Cultures and Society Psychologization of Contemporary Subjectivity. The Impact of the Psychological Sciences on Contemporary Subjectivities.
4 Disabilities and Ableism Introduction to Critical Disability Studies. Historical and Social Analysis of the Construction of Disability and Ableism.
5 Case Study Workshop Session Application of the History of the Body and Subjectivity to Case Study Analysis. Working with primary and secondary Sources.
6* Bodies, Emotions and Experiencies Analysis of Emotions as Embodied, Social, and Cultural Experiences, and of the Historical Relationships between the Body, Affect, and Subjectivity.
7* Gender, Health and Sexuality The Historical Construction of Sexual and Gender Differences, as well as of Norms and Deviance in Sexuality.
8* Gender, Race and Class Critical Historiography of “Race” and Material Culture in Colonial Contexts.
9* Humans and Animals Historical and Critical Exploration of the Boundaries between Humans and Animals.
10 Outreach Product Discusions. Conclusions. Final Reflections. Presentation of the Science Communication Product and Concluding Discussion.



Learning activities and methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
In-Class Work 8 0.32 CA30, CA31, SA28, SA29, SA30
Lessons and workshops 22 0.88 KA30, KA31, KA32, KA33, SA28
Readings and Individual Preparation of Coursework 15 0.6 KA30, KA31, KA32, KA33, SA28, SA29

The teaching methodology combines face-to-face sessions (including lectures, practical workshops, and in-class activities) with student readings and both individual and group work aimed at the development of a communication product.


The UAB Virtual Campus platform will be used for communication and exchange among the participants in the module.

Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title Weight Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Final Collaborative Science Communication Outreach 20% 23 0.92 CA30, CA31, KA32, SA28, SA30
Development of an Individual Science Communication Product. 25% 19 0.76 CA30, CA31, KA30, KA32, SA28
Participation in the Collaborative Development of the Science Communication Product. 30% 18 0.72 KA30, KA32, KA33, SA28, SA30
Research, Analysis and Discussion of Academic Literature 25% 20 0.8 KA31, SA29

In the first session, a case study related to the module will be introduced, serving as the basis for the collaborative development of a science communication product. This product may take different formats, including written (magazine or outreach website), audiovisual (podcast or documentary), or exhibition-based (virtual exhibition).

The case study will be developed throughout the module, both independently by students and through supervised work during Session 5 and the final 30 minutes of Sessions 6 to 9. Session 5 will be devoted to the discussion and collective review of the primary and secondary sources that will be used in the development of the final product, which will be presented and discussed during the final session (Session 10).

Each student will produce an individual contribution that will form part of the collective project. Assessment will consider both the individual work completed (50%) and each student's active participation in the development of the collective product during supervised sessions (30%), as well as the final collaborative product itself (20%), according to the criteria specified in the assessment table.


Assessment consists of the following activities:

  1. Individual content development project related to the case study addressed throughout the module. This project comprises two components: a) Research, analysis, and discussion of specific academic literature (25%); b) Development of an outreach product based on the previous literature review and research (25%). Total: 50% of the final grade.
  2. Work and active participation in workshop sessions: a) Classroom discussion of assigned readings and other materials; b) Active participation in the collaborative development of the science communication product. Total: 30% of the final grade.
  3. Assessment of the final collaborative outreach product. Total: 20% of the final grade.


Bibliography

Bajeux Camille (2024). Soigner la virilité. Une histoire de la santé masculine. Éditions BHMS.

Barnett, S. A. (1988). Biology and Freedom. An Essay on the Implications of Human Ethology. Cambridge University Press.

Bulloch, Vern L. (1994). Science in the Bedroom. A history of sex research. Basic Books.

Cabré i Pairet, Montserrat y Fernando Salmón Muñiz (eds.) (2013). Sexo y genero en medicina. Una introducción a los estudios de las mujeres y de género en ciencias de la salud. Universidad de Cantabria.

Darwin, Charles R. (1897). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. (Obra original publicada en 1872). D. Appleton and Company.

Despret, Vinciane (2018). ¿Qué dirían los animales… si les hiciéramos las preguntas correctas? (Trad. de S. Puente). Cactus. (Obra original publicada en 2012).

Dorlin, Elsa (2020) [2009]. La matriz de la raza. Genealogía sexual y colonial. Txalaparta.

Gómez Soriano, Rubén (2024). Primatologus videns: la configuración de la mirada antropológica. En Santiago M. Cruzada y Olatz González-Abrisketa (eds.) Animales y antropología: etnografías más que humanes en España. CSIC.

Gómez Soriano, Rubén y Vianna, Beto (2008). Demasiado mono. Versiones occidentales de los grandes simios. In T. Sánchez-Criado (Ed.). Tecnogénesis. La construcción técnica de las ecologías humanas, Vol. 1 (pp. 173-227). AIBR.

Gómez Soriano, Rubén, Correa Moreira, Gonzalo y Ferreira, Arthur Arruda Leal (2023). Vacas, simios y perros: reflexiones desde las relaciones interespecies acerca de la producción de lo humano. Tekoporá. Revista Latinoamericana de Humanidades Ambientales y Estudios Territoriales, 5(1), 39-66. https://doi.org/10.36225/tekopora.v5i1.196

Gondry, Michel (Director). (2001). Human Nature. [Película]. StudioCanal; Good Machine.

Hogarth, Rana (2017). Medicalizing Blackness. Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World: 1780-1840. University of North Carolina Press.

Hughes, B. (2020). A Historical Sociology of Disability: Human Validity and Invalidity from Antiquity to Early Modernity. Routledge.

Kremser, Elsa y Peter, Levin (Directores). (2019). Space Dogs [Película documental]. Raumzeitfilm Produktion, it Works Medien GmbH, Vita Aktiva.

Marsh, James (2011) Proyecto Nim [Project Nim]. Red Box Films, Passion Pictures y BBC Films [93 min.].

Martín-Moruno, Dolores (2024). “Physiologies of Love”. In A Cultural History of Love, Katie Barclay ed., vol. 6, pp. Bloomsbury.

Martín-Moruno, Dolores (2025). “Compasión”. En Atlas político de las pasiones, Antonio Ramos y Gonzalo Velasco eds, 119-128. Trotta.

Medina Doménech, Rosa (2005). La Historia de la medicina en el siglo XXI. Una visión poscolonial. Universidad de Granada.

Medina, Rosa (2013). “Who were the experts? The Science of Love vs. Women’s Knowledge of Love during the Spanish Dictatorship,” Science as Culture 23 (2): 177-200.

Mitchell, Elise (2022). “Morbid Crossings: Surviving Smallpox, Maritime Quarantine, and the Gendered Geography of the Early Eighteenth-Century Intra-Caribbean Slave Trade,” The William and Mary Quarterly 79, no. 2., pp. 177-210.

Pampler, Jan (2014). “Historia de las emociones: caminos y retos”, Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, vol. 36: 17-29.

Paugh, Katherine (2014). “Yaws, Syphilis, Sexuality, and the Circulation of Medical Knowledge in the British Caribbean and the Atlantic World”. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 88, 2. 225-252. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sanmiquel-Molinero, Laura (2020). «Los Estudios De La Dis Capacidad: Una Propuesta No Individualizante Para Interrogar críticamente La producción Del Cuerpo-Sujeto Discapacitado». Papeles De Identidad. Contar La investigación De Frontera 2020 (2):papel 231. https://doi.org/10.1387/pceic.20974.

Schiebinger, Londa (1993). Nature’s Body. Gender in the Making of Modern Science. Beacon Press.

Showalter, Elaine (1987) The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980. New York, Penguin.

Toboso Martín, Mario (2017). “Capacitismo”, en R. Lucas Platero, María Rosón y Esther Ortega (eds.): Barbarismos queer y otras esdrújulas. Barcelona. Ed. Bellaterra. 2017, pp. 73- 81.

Weaver, Karol (2004). “She Crushed the Child’s Fragile Skull: Disease, Infanticide, and Enslaved Women in Eighteenth-Century Saint-Domingue”. French Colonial History, 5(1), 93-109.

Software

No special software is required.

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE

Type of teaching Group Language Semester Shift
(TEm) Theory (master) 1 Catalan/Spanish second semester afternoon