ENG 250 Literature and Medicine
This course will provide an introduction to the study of literature and medicine by discussing relevant methodologies, contexts, and literature (both medical and literary). Large-level questions guiding the class include issues such as: Who gets to decide which bodies are sick and which are healthy, and how/why do they make those decisions? What do the stories we tell ourselves have to do with how we view our own health and mortality? What would a true ethics of care look like, and how has it been imagined? We will explore these and similar inquiries through analysis of autobiographies, novels and poetry dealing with health and illness; evaluation of sources from different disciplinary perspectives as a tool for critical thinking; and discussion about the rhetorical and historical contexts of popular conceptions of disease, health, and disability.