Medical Humanities in English Studies

Catalog description

This class exists at the intersection of literature, narrative studies, medical narratives and medicine. As such, it understands the complex interrelationships between the study of English and the treatment of the human body through medical practices. Exploring these intersections allows us to understand what skills studying English can provide to produce a more humane, ethical, compassionate, and effective model for health care and medicine. One aim of this course is to demonstrate that improving narrative competency and communication skills can lead to greater comfort with and compassion for patient narratives. At the same time, this course aims to demonstrate the ways in which narratives can help reclaim voices, can help humanize suffering, and can help us heal. Together, literature and medicine allow us to form interpretive frameworks that assemble meaning in the face of life's fragility. P: Ethics, Contemporary Composition.