FR 0088 - AILING BODIES: NARRATIVES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESS

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
How can disease or illness be put into fictional form? Taught in English for a general audience, this course focuses on literary and cultural representations of disease from the perspective of the humanities. Topics may include Alzheimer’s, anorexia, organ transplant, HIV-AIDS, and others. The novels that we will study all translate pain into language, and they rethink the doctor-patient relation and what an ailing body can do, as consequences of accident, illness, or disability. We will focus on contemporary literary texts from the French-speaking world and examine historical and cultural differences between France and the United States on medical issues such as organ donation, surrogacy, or vaccination. The French literary context is especially rich in the areas of medicine and health. Our approach will be informed by European philosophies of medicine, and we will investigate the narrative and aesthetic dimensions as well as the ethical stakes presented by a variety of types of texts. We will also examine how medicine interacts with, and redefines, notions of class, race, gender, and disability, and how science influences fictional, social, and political discourses on bodies. The course’s focus on health and medicine should be of interest to premed/health/science students and anyone who wishes to study health topics from an interdisciplinary perspective. All texts will be read in English translation.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Attributes: DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Literature General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req., SCI Polymathic Contexts: Humanistic GE. Req.

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