In 2016-2017, our International guest is professor Mary Terrall from UCLA. For more information, please see http://www.history.ucla.edu/faculty/mary-terrall. 

About this course
Subject: Mothers, Midwives and Medicine: The History of Childbirth

This course will explore the variety of practices and ideas associated with childbirth from the seventeenth century to the present, using examples from different parts of the world.  We will look at how relations among birthing women, midwives, surgeons and doctors changed over time; to understand these shifting relations, we will look at the cultural meanings of pregnancy and birth in different eras, as well as the professionalization of medicine.  Other topics include the medical technologies applied to childbirth in different times and places, debates about the value and consequences of the gradual medicalization of childbirth over the last three centuries, and  popular- culture representations of birth.  Reading will include large-scale historical narratives as well as local studies of particular individuals and customs, and primary sources by midwives and doctors.  There are also several films incorporated into the syllabus.