Registry

Module Specifications

Archived Version 2021 - 2022

Module Title	Critical Thinking and Health
Module Code	NS122
School	38
Online Module Resources
Module Co-ordinator	Dr Donal O'Mathuna	Office Number	H234
NFQ level	8	Credit Rating	5
Pre-requisite	None
Co-requisite	None
Compatibles	None
Incompatibles	None

Description

In this module, we explore a variety of phenomena to do with everyday life, society and health as a way of developing a "critical consciousness" oriented to the meanings of things as part of a relational world.

Learning Outcomes

1. Explore the meaning and significance of thinking for oneself and critical consciousness.
2. Examine societal and health phenomena by reference to 'the world'- the relational constellation- within which they are located.
3. Collaborate with others in thinking critically about a range of phenomena to do with everyday life, society and health. These include: the ideology of merit; beds; biography, judgement and mental health; stories of illness and disability; death; bodies; claims about human nature; altruism; and relations with nonhuman animals.
4. Develop a reasoned critical position in relation to at least one of the phenomena explored on the module.

*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Workload	Full-time hours per semester
Lecture	24	Lecture and group discussion
Online activity	12	Loop quizzes
Online activity	12	Watching and examining video materials
Independent Study	47	Reading
Independent Study	30	Preparation of assignment
Total Workload: 125

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

He saved us all!: Thinking for oneself and critical consciousness
How a Soviet Colonel saved the world; thinking for oneself; Arendt on thoughtlessness and personhood; curiosity and the significance of the question; Freire, pedagogy and critical consciousness- presence in the world; Barthes, ideology and mythology; scholarship and argument.

"How did you do in your Leaving Cert?": Education, meritocracy and society
Why come to college?; the idea of a university; Sandel, meritocracy and entry to college; college and developing identities; pleasure and college life; universities and the economy

"My Bed": Beds, culture and health
Tracey Emin, "My Bed" and what counts as art; the bed as an object with a significant place in culture and history; beds, sleep and health; beds and birth;"sickbeds" and "deathbeds"; beds as a site for sex; dreams and their significance; beds as refuge; the significance of "getting out of bed" and "staying in bed"; relations with one's bed as a social and psychological signifier.

Simone Biles at the Olympics: Biography, judgement and mental health
Childhood experience and later mental health; linking biography and mental health; individualistic and systemic views of mental health; social expectations and judgements; mental health and younger people; pressures to be "special".

The model with a prosthetic leg: Storying illness and disability
Frank and the "restitution society"; the significance of disability and illness stories; self and narrative; stories and self-repair; formula stories; stories and selectivity- the case of prostheses; stories and oppression- Ehrenreich and the critique of positive thinking; metaphor, suffering and cancer; medicine, science and restitution stories.

The midwife who couldn't say "dead": Thinking about mortality
Lawton on "dirty dying" and "unbounded bodies"; death denial in culture and health care; Gawande on being mortal; fleeing and facing death; religion, atheism and meaning.

Lizzo at Glastonbury: Contested meanings of overweight and obesity
Stigma and obesity; Murray on "reading fatness"; obesogenic systems and critiques of responsibilisation; weight loss surgery; Throsby on accounting for oneself as overweight in a climate of negative judgement.

Daniel Craig as James Bond: Fit bodies in contemporary society
Bodies as projects of modification and perfectibility; marketisation of the body; body solutions as a source of body dissatisfaction/shame; culture, control and gratification; disputed meanings of the gym.

"The Purge" and ideas about human nature
Ideas about human nature from philosophy- Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel, Sartre, Levinas; Bregman on 'Humankind'; Milgram on obedience and conformity; Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment; social implications of ideas about human nature; constructionist and strengths-based perspectives on human potential.

The generosity of Bill Gates and the meanings of altruism in contemporary societies
Philanthropy; charity; social entrepreneurship and innovation; effective altruism; neoliberalism, good deeds and systemic injustice/harms; altruism as a quality of one's intentions.

Bord Bia- "Enjoy pork you can trust"?: The ethics of meat and dairy consumption
The ethical significance of suffering; non-human animals, industrial farming and suffering; Singer and the utilitarian case for veganism; Korsgaard and animals as ends in themselves.

"Okja": Exploring human/nonhuman animal relations
Nonhuman animals as family members; "posthuman families"; relations with nonhuman animals as company, comforting, consoling, empowering, humanising; nonhuman animals as "reasons to live" with illness and disability.

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	100%	Examination Weight	0%

Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Course Work Breakdown

Reassessment Requirement
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories; 1 = A resit is available for all components of the module 2 = No resit is available for 100% continuous assessment module 3 = No resit is available for the continuous assessment component
Unavailable

Indicative Reading List

Aysha Akhtar: 2019, Our Symphony with Animals, Pegasus Books, 9781643130705
Hannah Arendt: 2003, Responsibility And Judgment, Schocken Books Incorporated, 9780805211627
Hannah Arendt: 1963, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Penguin UK, 0143039881
Roland Barthes: 1993, Mythologies, Random House, 9780099972204
Ernest Becker: 1997, The Denial of Death, Simon and Schuster, 0684832402
Rutger Bregman: 2020, Humankind, Bloomsbury, 9781408898949
Anne Boyer: 2019, The Undying, Penguin UK, 9780241399736
Barbara Ehrenreich: 2010, Smile Or Die, Granta Books, 9781847081735
Brian Fagan,Nadia Durrani: 2019, What We Did in Bed, Yale University Press, 9780300245011
Viktor Emil Frankl: 2004, Man's Search for Meaning, 5th Ed, Random House, 1844132390
Arthur W. Frank: 2013, The Wounded Storyteller, University of Chicago Press, 022600497X
Paulo Freire: 1998, Pedagogy of Freedom, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated, 9780847690466
Atul Gawande: 0, Being Mortal, 1846685818
Thomas Hobbes: 2017, Leviathan, Penguin Books, 9780141395098
Christine Marion Korsgaard: 2018, Fellow Creatures, Oxford University Press, 0198753853
0: ENTRE NOUS: ON THINKING-OF-THE-OTHER (INTERLOAN 323191)., 232077
2016: Doing Good Better, Guardian Books, 325, 232078
2015: Altruism, Little, Brown, 864, 232043
0: Obedience to Authority, 232543
2010: Bodies, Profile Books(GB), 182, 232079
2003: The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Classics, 256, 232054
2020: The Tyranny of Merit, Penguin UK, 288, 232133
2015: Animal Liberation, Bodley Head Childrens, 336, 232080
2015: The Most Good You Can Do, Yale University Press, 211, 232107
2017: Beasts of Burden, The New Press, 272, 232108
2021: Extreme Weight Loss, New York University Press, 213, 232544
2008: The Lucifer Effect, Random House, 551,

Other Resources

None

Programme or List of Programmes

AFU	Age Friendly University Programme
BHS	Bachelor of Science in Health & Society

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