Literature and medicine

elective courses

The presentations of the intersections of literary and medical discourses on the examples of American literature.

The course focuses on the intersections of literary and medical discourses. The aim of the course is to look at how various aspects of the discipline of medicine such as illness, bodily and psychosocial suffering, pharmacology, death, suicide, the concept of the norm, the hegemony of the medical profession, ethics and public health are represented in literature. The intended approach introduces texts from various disciplines such as literary theory, cultural studies, visual studies as well as narrative medicine, the history of medicine, and excerpts from medical textbooks in order to present literature and medicine’s long history of cross-pollination. As for the literary component, the course focuses on American literature.

Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (1978)

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010) (excerpts)

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (1980)

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “White Glasses,” from Tendencies (1993)

Crazy Sexy Cancer, dir. Kris Car (2007)

Anne Boyer, The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care (2019)

David Foster Wallace, “The Depressed Person” (1998)

Elissa Washuta, My Body Is a Book of Rules (2014)

Susan Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphor (1989)

Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1991), and Perestroika (optional) (1991)

Outbreak, dir. Wolfgang Petersen (1995)

Adele E. Clarke, et al, “Biomedicalization: Technoscientific Transformations of Health, Illness, and U.S. Biomedicine” (2003)

Heid Erdrich, Cell Traffic (2012)

Ted Chiang, “Exhalation” (2008)

Carlos Novas and Nikolas Rose, “Genetic Risk and the Birth of the Somatic Individual” (2000)

Gattaca, dir. Andrew Niccol (1997)

Lennard J. Davis, from “Nude Venuses, Medusa’s Body, and Phantom Limbs: Disability and Visuality” (1997)

Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People” and “The Lame Shall Enter First,” from The Complete Stories (1971)

Extreme Bodies: Conjoined Twins (2008), a selection of scenes

Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure (2017) (excerpts)

Knowledge: the graduate will be able to

Identify and characterize on an advanced level the place and status of literary and culture studies within the humanities, medical humanities in particular

Describe on an advanced level the current trends in literary and cultural studies research within English studies, in particular medical humanities, body studies, illness studies and disability studies

Characterize on an advanced level the principles of research design in literary and culture studies with special focus on the application of methods and tools in formulating research problems, in particular in medical humanities and related fields

Identify the notions and principles pertinent to intellectual property and copyright

Abilities: the graduate is able to

Apply advanced terminology and notions pertinent to the discipline (linguistics, literary studies, culture and religion studies, and medical humanities)

Apply advanced research methodology within literary and culture studies, English studies, and medical humanities,respecting ethical norms and copyright law

Apply knowledge obtained during the course of studies to account for and solve a problem, thereby completing a research task related to the discipline literary studies and/or culture and religion studies, in particular medical humanities

Analyze linguistic, literary and cultural phenomena and draw generalizations on their basis in the context of societal, historical and economic factors on an advanced level and demonstrates how these factors are connected to our understanding of medicine

Discern alternative methodological paradigms within a discipline and remain aware of medical humanities' interdisciplinary character

Find information in various sources and critically assess its usefulness for research related to the topic of the MA project

Social competences: the graduate is ready to

Apply knowledge and skills obtained during the course of studies to undertake lifelong learning, as well as personal and professional development and at the same time remaing aware of medicine's multiple's entanglements

Take responsibility for performing one’s professional duties, with due respect for the work of others in the academic context and beyond, obey and develop the ethical norms in professional and academic settings related to the disciplines included on the curriculum of English studies

Assess critically one’s own knowledge and skills related to the studies

Participate in academic and cultural undertakings offered via various media

Value cultural heritage and cultural diversity as well as individual opinions

A final test consisting of two parts 1) text recognition and 2) open questions.

A final note depends on participation during classes.