It has never been more essential to learn from the history of disease: how we have perceived it and how we have written it. This course introduces students to the important narratives about health, epidemics, and medicine from both non-Western and Western traditions and provides conceptual foundations for ethical thinking about justice, health, and disability in both science and the arts. The survey will cover prose narrative, film, media, non-fiction, and poetry, and will encourage students to think between the past and the present in their analyses and creative projects. Lectures and discussions will emphasize the interlocking relationships between medicine, language, race, empire, and power.
100-level courses are designed to increase students’ skills in close reading, interpretation, and effective writing; emphasize the development of analytical and essay-writing skills; and build acquaintance with major literary forms and conventions that students need in more advanced courses. They are open to all students who have standing in no more than one full course in English.
