Disease Narratives

Catalog description

Narratives shape our experience of illness, and the larger social structures that produce and treat it. Literary and historical accounts of bacterial and fungal infections, viral and parasitic outbreaks, environmental and hereditary illnesses, can help us think critically about our models of sickness and health. Using a medical humanities framework, we will analyze narrative forms (novels, essays, podcasts, etc.) and study the relationship between the social determinants of health and the biological mechanisms of illness.