Arts in Sickness and in Health

Catalog description

This course explores bodily transitions across the lifespan through art, writing, performance, and ritual alongside medical and public health perspectives. Students examine the medical gaze, illness narratives, stigma, and the politics of visibility. The course also studies pregnancy, disability, aging, and dying as moments of new embodied knowledge. Through analysis and creative work, students learn how cultural forms can challenge medical authority and restore agency and dignity to lived bodily experience.