HIS 296 (Summer 2020) Quarantine and Pandemics, Syllabus (original) (raw)

2020, course Syllabus Quarantine and Pandemics

Course description: Since the Black Death in the fourteenth century, quarantines and limitations on social contact have played an important role in mitigating and ending the spread of contagious diseases. City states such as Venice and Milan and the Swiss cantons played pioneering roles in controlling epidemics. This course examines changing views of pandemics and public health policies throughout global history through the lens of the successes and failures of measures and policies designed to fight pandemics from antiquity to the current Covid-19 crisis. Course Goals: Goals for this course include the following:  To develop critical thinking and analytical skills regarding primary and secondary sources in any given historical context, with an ability to recognize the changing nature of human affairs, in particular regarding the history of pandemics, the social and societal structures that developed to cope with contagious diseases (and with the sick), including the development of the modern state as well as international and global collaboration and organization in order to fight diseases;  To practice the synthesizing of information from classroom discussion, reading and individual research, with an emphasis on the history of medicine, epidemiology, ethics, and the interconnectedness of human affairs across time, and in global perspective;  To strengthen students' skills necessary for study, research, and oral and written presentation; and  To demonstrate the ability to work collaboratively and to use technology effectively. Learning Outcomes: Learning in this course is directed at the objectives of the study of history as an academic discipline devoted to pursuing a deeper understanding of human affairs in the distant and recent past. Upon completion of this class, students should 1. Be acquainted with major trends and key dates in human history from the fourteenth century to the present; 2. Be familiar with some of the main theoretical constructs relating to the history of medicine and epidemiology in global perspective in this period; a. these include categories such as space and time, health and disease, causation and correlation, as well as culture and civilization, as well as the interrelation between human beings and their respective environment;