Disease in Film and Literature

Catalog description

This course focuses on the intersection between disease and the arts, exploring how literature and film reflect and shape our understanding of the human condition through illness as well as the constantly evolving relationship between patient and healer. Students also examine how issues of race, culture, gender and class are represented in text and film, both historical and otherwise, in narratives of illness and treatment. Students consider to what extent classic and contemporary narratives construct and deconstruct the boundaries of empathy and compassion.