Advanced Topics in Medical Humanities

It is impossible to study Medical/Health Humanities now without emphasizing the COVID-19 pandemic and the social disparities it casts into relief.  This class studies how the arts can provide access to voices and perspectives on illness and health disparities that might be overlooked in news coverage, historical and sociological research on the current pandemic.    

This class begins by introducing the field of Medical/Health Humanities and the critical questions and tools it provides.  We will use these perspectives to study narrative and visual representations in different media that address the intersections of social inequity, biomedical pandemic, and aesthetic forms.  Our study of representations will be divided into four parts.  1.The last great global pandemic.  Representations of AIDS epidemic highlight the impact of social stigma on public health and medical care, as well as the use of art as an agent of activism and change.  We will consider such works as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Charles Burns’s Black Hole, short stories, and the art produced within and in response to the ACT-UP movement. 2.Race and medical inequity. We study the racialization of genetic science, and its connection new forms of white supremacy and a history of racialized health disparities.  Our readings include Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the poetry of Maya Angelou and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and the speculative fiction of N.K. Jemison.  3.Fictional representations of pandemic that illuminate real life disparities in health and access to medical care will set the stage for our study of the current pandemic.  We will read Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and Colson Whitehead’s zombie novel, Zone One.  4.Literary representations of COVID, as represented by the short stories in The Decameron Project, as well as short film and visual arts. Seminar style classes will emphasize student interests and direction.  They will be heavily discussion-based with a combination of full class and smaller breakout formats.  Assignments include an in-class presentation and short paper on one week’s materials; a comparative narrative analysis, and an imaginative final project with a critical introduction.