BSOC 2350

Literature and Medicine

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

How does literary language depict the experience of physical suffering? Can a poem or a novel palliate pain, illness, even the possibility of death? From darkly comic narratives of black plague and accounts of early modern melancholy to twentieth century critiques of the mental institution and depictions of the AIDS crisis, this course examines literature centered on medical practices from the early modern period through the twentieth century. Why have medical practices changed, and how do writers address their political, social, and ideological implications? Readings will include a broad range of genres, including poetry (Coleridge, Whitman), fiction (McEwan, Chekhov, Gilman, Kafka), theater (Kushner), nonfiction prose (Defoe, Woolf), and critical theory (Scarry, Canguilhem, Sontag).

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

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