Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: TOPICS ON EXPERIENCES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESS

Department: Medical Humanities

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: If two people say “ouch” at the same time, are they feeling the same thing? In this course, we will consider this question, among others, in the context of a larger examination of pain as a topic in art, an embodied experience, and a medical phenomenon. We will study the history of representations of pain, the complex renderings of pain in art, the way pain is observed and measured in contemporary medicine, and the challenges of representing different “kinds” of pain. In doing so, we will develop a complex understanding of what Susan Sontag called our “more onerous citizenship” in the “kingdom of the sick” and collectively propose new ways of understanding pain. This course counts towards the electives requirement for the MDHM minor. Repeatable for Credit.