Literature of Illness and Healing: Wounded Storytellers and Dedicated Healers

Catalog description

What is it like to suffer a stroke, contend with cancer, deal with depression or live with a debilitating disease? While bio-medicine may clinically treat such conditions, it is to literature that we turn to gain a humanistic understanding of the emotional and spiritual impact of illness on wounded storytellers and on the dedicated doctors and nurses who care for them. Readings in various literary genres (memoir, essay, poetry, fiction, drama) and films with medical themes will also explore issues of diversity, noting how gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation affect the illness experience.