Literature and Medicine

Catalog description

Disease and death are everywhere in literature, as are attempts to regain and maintain health. In the past half-century, however, patient narratives and narratives of those who have cared for them, have been published in increasing numbers and today constitute both a supplement to medical history and a new form of literature. Literature has become just as much a part of medicine as medicine has been a part of literature. This course examines the overlap of medicine, literature, and culture in order to understand the ways in which various societies understand health and illness, life and death; what literature can do to better understand the patient and the physician; what dialogue can be had between these two fields. P: Critical Issues in Human Inquiry.