ENGL 219: Literature & Medicine
Humanities—Lit & Arts
This course introduces students to the literature of medicine. We will take up questions at the forefront of “medical humanities”—a field that examines cultural attitudes toward illness and recovery, the dramas and power dynamics of the clinic, and the lived experiences of doctors and patients. We will think through the ways that our experiences of health and illness are not simply given or universal but are shaped by the literature we read, the films we watch, the stories we tell our doctors and that they tell us. In our discussions we will ask what kinds of narratives, character types, and assumptions about health and illness can be discerned from medical literature and how these have changed over time. Are there alternative attitudes toward these experiences that we might be able to recognize in new or forgotten representations of health and illness? In what ways have assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, and “the human” been constructed through ideas about health, illness, and abnormality? How can health care professionals’ delivery of care be improved through forms of literary training and knowledge? The course is open to all and may be of special interest to students who are considering a future in health care. We will likely discuss works by Roxane Gay, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lucy Prebbles, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Damon Tweedy, Virginia Woolf, and others.