Instructor: Reutter | ASYN

This course will examine the relationships between medicine and literature. We will read, discuss, and interpret a wide variety of literature from different canonical periods to better understand how the “medical arts” developed historically into what we now consider the “science of medicine.” Along the way we will look at how medical issues inevitably involve historically specific cultural biases and, at times, disguise these biases in the supposedly neutral terms of an empirical discourse. Additionally, we will explore social and cultural issues related to the profession of medicine, including power dynamics in the doctor-patient relationship, how doctors and patients define health similarly and differently, and the impact of gender on a doctor’s practice of medicine, as well as on the patient’s medical experience.