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ENGL 525

HEALTH AND THE HUMANITIES

3 credits.

Explore how a humanistic perspective can broaden our understanding of health, illness, and medicine. Examine the role of language and culture in the creation and circulation of biomedical knowledge; lived experiences with illness (physical and mental); the intricate intersections of race, gender, sexuality, disability and medicine; the political dimensions of diagnosis, disease, and epidemics, and the role that fiction, creative non-fiction, comics, and film play in shaping our experiences with health, illness, and medicine as health care providers and as patients. Consider how non-experts interact with medicine and its technical vocabularies. Understand the cultural, social, and political dimensions of health, illness, and medicine and become a more well-versed patient and provider.

Prerequisites & course information

Requisites: Junior standing and declared in the Health and the Humanities Certificate Course Designation: Core GenEd - Humanities & Arts Breadth - Humanities Level - Advanced L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Spring 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Reflect on personal values and experiences in relation to health, illness, and medical care, and use humanities methods to explore them Audience: Undergraduate 2. Engage respectfully with alternative views on health and illness (especially drawn from different cultures/life experiences), and develop interpersonal skills in class projects Audience: Undergraduate 3. Identify ethical dilemmas in healthcare, apply analytical tools to these problems, and discuss the benefits and shortcomings of various approaches Audience: Undergraduate 4. Recognize major historical trends pertinent to the health field and demonstrate an understanding of the connections between events, ideas, and values across time Audience: Undergraduate 5. Understand how creative and humanistic thinking impacts experiences of illness and can improve the delivery of care and healing Audience: Undergraduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Reflect on personal values and experiences in relation to health, illness, and medical care, and use humanities methods to explore them Audience: Undergraduate 2. Engage respectfully with alternative views on health and illness (especially drawn from different cultures/life experiences), and develop interpersonal skills in class projects Audience: Undergraduate 3. Identify ethical dilemmas in healthcare, apply analytical tools to these problems, and discuss the benefits and shortcomings of various approaches Audience: Undergraduate 4. Recognize major historical trends pertinent to the health field and demonstrate an understanding of the connections between events, ideas, and values across time Audience: Undergraduate 5. Understand how creative and humanistic thinking impacts experiences of illness and can improve the delivery of care and healing Audience: Undergraduate

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