Dr Paul Atkinson BA (Hons), PhD

I contribute to modules in the MB BCh and Masters in Public Health programmes.

In 2019 I led a module at the University of Lancaster on the history of Medicine since 1800. This comprised a series of lectures on the history of clinical medicine, the understanding of health and illness forged in hospitals and laboratories, and a complementary series of workshops in which we examined key texts. This provided students with a historically grounded understanding of important analytical concepts such as anatomo-politics and anatomo-pathological medicine, starting from Foucault's The Birth of the Clinic and proceeding to other important writers such as George Canguilhem and Susan Sontag.

In 2019 I led a module at the University of Lancaster on the history of Sexuality and Reproduction since 1800. This comprised a series of lectures on topics such as Malthus and Mathusianism, contraception, and eugenics, and a complementary series of workshops in which we examined key texts. This provided students with a historically grounded understanding of important analytical concepts such as biopolitics, starting from Foucault's History of Sexuality and proceeding to other important writers such as Thomas Laqueur, Davidoff and Hall, Anna Davin and Judith Butler.