The module introduces students to international humanitarian history since the anti-slavery movement and the foundation of the International Committee of the...

Global History of Humanitarianism (IRDR0018)

The module introduces students to international humanitarian history since the anti-slavery movement and the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the 19th century, through to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. Lectures will examine key events and ideas that have shaped the system, including: the Geneva Conventions and the protection of wounded soldiers on the battlefield; the humanitarian aftermath of World Wars I and II (including the global refugee crisis); the origins of the United Nations and its key humanitarian agencies and laws; the Cold War and humanitarian politics; famine in Ethiopia and Live aid in the 1980s; the 1994 Rwandan Genocide; liberal interventionism of the 1990s; the War on Terror’s challenge to humanitarian ethics and action; and the international system’s successes and failures in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. 

 

The core teaching method will be lectures. Weekly seminars will be used for discussion, group activities, and feedback. In this module students will be required to engage with the main historiographical debates, and learning activities will include analysis of primary sources.

Ever since there were organisms to infect, there were pathogens. Pathogens and the diseases they cause have been our constant companions throughout...

Evolution and Infectious Diseases (INIM0015)

Ever since there were organisms to infect, there were pathogens. Pathogens and the diseases they cause have been our constant companions throughout evolutionary history. This module will cover the basics of evolution, and how these concepts help us to understand the shifting relationship between pathogen and host. We will discuss how human culture and civilisation have affected the evolution of pathogens, and how pathogens have affected human evolution, determining the most basic aspects of who we are, what it is to be an organism, to be an individual, to be human. We will consider the evolutionary record that can be recovered by analysing genomic sequences, and how deciphering these patterns can provide crucial information to the scientist, the epidemiologist, and the clinician. These topics will be anchored by considering important pathogens - Cholera, Malaria, HIV - how they have evolved, and how we have evolved in response. We will then look to the future, at the nature of the increasing threats that we will be facing.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module you will have an appreciation for the shared evolutionary dynamics of pathogens and their hosts, the role that pathogens have played during the evolution of humans and other forms of life, how human history has been shaped, is shaped, and will continue to be shaped by pathogens, how pathogens have responded to human activities and changes in the environment, how the evolutionary record can inform clinical and public health decisions and how this has played out for a number of important infectious diseases.