Fall 2023 Detailed Description

This course focuses on literary representations of the body, medicine, illness, disease, and public health. We will study a selection of imaginative works that have significant medical interest. In other words, we will read mostly non-medical writing that engages with some aspect of medicine; illuminates the experience of illness (pain, suffering, sympathy etc.); explores the nature of disease, its roots or causes and politics; provides a historical perspective on all of the foregoing. These works will be drawn from different literary genres (fiction, essay, and drama) and historical periods, and will represent a range of viewpoints.  Readings, discussions, and assignments are designed to help students develop their analytic-interpretive skills.  This is certainly a course that can benefit those intending to be healthcare professionals; but it is mainly a course designed for anyone curious about how the domain of the medical intersects with broader extra-medical aspects of human culture and experience.

ENGL 444 and 415 courses may not be taken for Major credit by ENGL Department majors.

This course satisfies HUMA/DISC.