Introduction to Health, Medicine, and Literature

01:090:295:H4
Professor Ann Jurecic
M/W 1:10 PM - 2:30 PM
HC S124 | College Avenue Campus

Index# 18230

 

Will Count Towards SAS – English MAJOR
Will Count Towards SAS – English MINOR


In the 21st century, disease seems to belong to the clean, well-lighted place of fact and biology. And yet, illness and medical treatment take place in culture and are complicated by language, history, economics, and politics. We’ll read a range of 20th-and 21st-century fiction and nonfiction: stories that ponder the limits of language; nonfiction about how different cultures define health, illness, and even death; texts that raise questions about the relationship between our brains and ourselves; and narratives by physicians and patients that examine the meaning of embodied experience.

 

About Professor Jurecic

"Whether I’m teaching a literature or writing course, I structure it around problems and controversies that are rich with questions for which there are no easy answers. I want students to encounter uncertainty, to become curious, and then to let that curiosity drive their learning. Students also write a lot in my classes because writing is such a good tool for transforming curiosity and confusion into clear ideas, interpretations, and arguments. It’s tremendously gratifying to help students recognize that writing is not just for recording what they already know or reporting someone else’s ideas, but for exploring the boundaries of what they can think or say."