Introduction To Medical Humanities

Catalog description

Cat. II How do medicine, disease, health, and healing shape our experience of what it is to be human? What do literature, poetry, popular culture, or religious and spiritual traditions have to do with modern medical practices and institutions? This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of medical humanities, and its core set of concepts, questions, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. The course will bring together and familiarize students with work from diverse fields of study, including comparative literature, the visual and performing arts, history of medicine, cultural studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, ethics, and philosophy. Potential course topics include the production and circulation of medical knowledge, embodied experiences of illness and affliction, cross-cultural perspectives on sickness and healing, the social and interpersonal dimensions of illness, illness and medicine in popular culture, and the ways in which humanistic inquiry can enhance and improve contemporary medical practices.