Module SOC2037 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
SOC2037: Pharmaceutical Cultures
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following themes:
- Origins and expansion of pharmaceutical industries and markets.
- The political economy of drug development, testing and regulation.
- Pharmaceuticals and social change.
- Pharmaceuticals, deviance, and social control.
- Medicalisation of everyday life and the rise of ‘lifestyle drugs’.
- Nonmedical uses of prescription drugs: Abuse/recreational use.
- Nonmedical uses of prescription drugs: Enhancement.
- Iatrogenic (medical) addiction to pharmaceuticals: why do doctors still prescribe?
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning activity | 11 | 11 x 1 hour lectures delivering the academic framework of the course |
| Scheduled learning activity | 11 | 11 x 1 hour seminars including group work and class discussion of key topics and debates from the lectures |
| Guided independent study | 40 | 20 course readings (2 hours each) |
| Guided independent study | 40 | Reading/research for essay |
| Guided independent study | 8 | Essay plan preparation |
| Guided Independent Study | 40 | Reading/revisions for examination |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
DeGrandpre, R. J. (2006). The cult of pharmacology: how America became the world's most troubled drug culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Dumit, J., & Greenslit, N. (eds) (2006). Pharmaceutical cultures. Special issue of Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 30(2).
Healy, D. (2002). The creation of psychopharmacology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lakoff, A. (2005). Pharmaceutical reason: knowledge and value in global psychiatry. Cambridge: CUP.
Martin, E. (2007). Bipolar expeditions: mania and depression in American culture. Princeton, N.J: Princeton UP.
Moncrieff, J. (2008). The myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Petryna, A., Lakoff, A., & Kleinman, A. (eds) (2006). Global pharmaceuticals: ethics, markets, practices. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
van der Geest, S., Whyte, S. R., & Hardon, A. (1996). The anthropology of pharmaceuticals: a biographical approach. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25(1), 153-178.
Williams, S. J., Gabe, J., & Davis, P. (eds) (2009). Pharmaceuticals and society: critical discourses and debates. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
