ENGL 255: Literature and Medicine

This course will familiarize students with the methodology, scope, and practice of literature and medicine studies by reading literary works dealing with health and illness alongside theories of the body and histories of medicine. The course will start by contemplating the relationship between literature and medicine and move on to examining specific literary works to explore questions such as how changes in medical perspectives affect the literary world, how literary works influence medical professions, and in what ways the purpose, effect and structure of literature and medicine are similar and different. The goal of the course is to enhance student appreciation of literary works covered in class, to establish a base for a critical understanding of medicine in its social context, and to cultivate a compassionate view of bodies in disease.