Humanities and Fine Arts 191HFA7 - FYS- Intro/Narrative Medicine

Using literature, visual arts and music, this class will usher students into a deeper understanding of the connections between medical professions, literature and the arts. Through attention to themes such as infectious disease, mental disturbance, death, organ transplantation and cloning, we will see both how medicine informs literature and how literature informs the practice of medicine. In addition to highlighting the importance of a well-rounded education in the humanities for the practice of medicine which is concerned, ultimately, with the human being in all its frailty and finitude, this seminar will introduce students to the basic techniques of Narrative Medicine. Authors include Dostoevsky, E. A. Poe, Goethe, Heine, Kate Chopin, Charlotte P. Gilman, Manjula Padmanabhan, Ishiguro.

Open to first-year Humanities and Fine Arts Exploratory Track students and first-year HFA Majors.