Introduction to Medical Humanities

About

For centuries, love, war, and ego have shaped literature and culture; however, illness or recuperating from illness has only recently received the same amount of cultural depth. As an introductory course to medical humanities, it will focus on critical pathways for thinking about health and medicine, including questions of care and ethics. The course, at its beginning, will engage with key theoretical texts from the field and then will shift to focus on the contemporary Indian context. By bringing into analysis case studies, texts, films, and policies, it aims to build an understanding of medical authority and stigma, especially around mental illness, menstruation, disability, HIV/AIDS, and pandemics. In examining how illness, bodies, and care are shaped and, in turn, shape society, culture, law, and inequality, the course will ask what medicine can do and understand its perceived limits.

Intended audience: Students from English language and Literature, Cultural Studies, Film Studies, Gender Studies, Literary Studies, Medical and Nursing, Pharma, Sociology, Medical Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies