ENGL 2350

Literature and Medicine

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2024-2025 Catalog. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

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 to the rise and fall of hysteria to 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 (Dickinson, Whitman, Keats), fiction (McEwan, Chekhov, Gilman, Kafka, Camus), theater (Kushner), nonfiction prose (Woolf, Freud), and critical theory (Foucault, Scarry, Canguilhem, Sontag).

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2023SP, 2021SP, 2019SP

Distribution Category (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG)

When Offered Spring.

Satisfies Requirement This course counts toward the post-1800 requirement for English majors.

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