litmedcult

English 3154: Literature, Medicine, and Culture

Spring 2007 CRN 12630

T/Th 12:30-1:45pm, Pamplin 1010

Professor Bernice Hausman

Description:
This course examines representations of health and illness in literature and medicine as a cultural
practice. Students will read pathography or writing about illness; literature that includes images and themes concerning medicine, health, and illness; and cultural analyses of public health campaigns and discourses about health and illness in the media. Thus, Literature, Medicine, and Culture offers students experience in working critically with literary texts and the cultural analysis of social practices, long a part of cultural studies. The skills that students learn in this course—identifying and understanding medicine and medical practice as socially constituted, identifying ethical dilemmas in relation to illness and treatment, articulating the linkages between culture and health—are critical to informed citizenship. Reading responses, 2 papers, and midterm and final exams.

Readings: Books have been ordered at the university bookstore and are also available at Volume II and the Tech Bookstore.
Anne Finger, Elegy for a Disease
Abraham Verghese, My Own Country
Lynn Payer, Medicine and Culture
Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill
Anton Chekhov, The Major Plays (we are reading Ivanov)
Richard Klein, Cigarettes are Sublime
Marie Howe and Michael Klein, eds., In the Company of My Solitude: Writing from the AIDS Pandemic

Online or supplied by professor:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Man That Was Used Up"
Maxine Hong Kingston, "Shaman," The Woman Warrior (handout)
Bradley Lewis,"Listening to Chekhov: Narrative Approaches to Depression," Literature and Medicine 25.1 (Spring 2006): 46-71. Available through e-journals link on library homepage
Laura Behling, "Replacing the Patient: The Fiction of Prosthetics in Medical Practice," Journal of Medical Humanities 26.1 (April 2005): 53-66. Available through e-journals link on library homepage.

How to navigate this website:

Below on this page you will find the assignments and reading schedule for this course, as well as information about attendance . Under assignments, you will see how much each assignment is worth as a percentage of your final grade. The reading schedule includes the topics for discussioin, exam dates, and due dates for papers and presentations, as well as information about what to read when.

Under General Course Info (another web page) you will find links to Prof. Hausman's teaching pages, including information about how to read for her classes, expectations for written work, feminist pedagogy, undergraduate academic policies (see esp. pages on plagiarism) and the honor code, etc. It is your responsibility as a student in Prof. Hausman's class to be familiar with these guidelines and expectations.

Statement on student accommodation:

Students who have a disability or other condition that requires accommodation should discuss the issue with Prof. Hausman early in the semester. Students need not disclose their condition with the professor, merely provide her with documentation from the Dean of Students Office concerning the necessary accommodation. Students may make an appointment or come to Prof. Hausman's office hours (posted on contact info page). All conversations between individual students and the professor will remain confidential.

Issues that come up midsemester concerning attendance, family emergencies, etc., should be vetted through the Dean of Students Office as well. Please do not send me emails concerning family emergencies unless you also intend to discuss the matter with the Dean of Students and get an official note sent to all of your teachers. My attendance policy, below, discusses other particulars of my expectation of your attendance.

Attendance Policy:

No absences are excused, but students have two allocated cuts that are "free"--use them wisely! More than two absences will affect your grade; each absence over two (one full week of class) will cause a diminishment in your grade. If there are ongoing issues that will affect your ability to attend this class, please see Professor Hausman early in the semester.

Methods of evaluation:
1. Informal responses to readings--using Blackboard's discussion board feature. On Monday of each week I will post a discussion question in a new discussion board. By Friday at noon, students will each post a response to the original question. These questions will refer to the week's readings, and are my method of making sure that you keep up with your reading. Each response is worth 1 point. (15 points)
2. Paper #1 (15 points)
3. Paper #2 (20 points)
4. Midterm exam (20 points)
5. Final exam (30 points)

Schedule of readings:

[Readings are identified by the author's last name, so check the list of readings above. Books should be completed on the day that we begin to discuss them.]

Unit 1: Fictional and dramatic works

Jan. 16: Introductions

Jan 18: Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark"

Jan. 23: Poe and Behling

Jan 25: Chekhov and Lewis

Jan. 30: Chekhov and Lewis

Unit 2: Personal Writing about Illness and Medicine

Feb 1, 6: Woolf (with introduction by Lee)

Feb. 8, 13, 15, 20: Finger

Feb. 20: paper #1 due (lecture, disability studies)

Feb. 22: Kingston

Feb. 27: Discussion and Review.

Mar. 1: Midterm exam

SPRING BREAK

Unit 3: AIDS in America and South Africa

Mar. 13, 15, 20: Verghese

Mar. 22, 27, 29: Howe and Klein, plus Surgeon General's 1988 mailing on AIDS. Please have all of Howe and Klein read for Mar. 22. We will discuss this text on Mar. 22 and 27; on Mar. 29 we will look at the Surgeon General's mailing.

Apr. 3, 5: Viewing and discussion, "Beat It"

Unit 4: Rhetorics of Public Health--Tobacco

Apr. 10, 12, 17, 19: Richard Klein (and public health materials)

Apr. 19: paper #2 due

Unit 5: National Cultures and Medical Practices

Apr. 24, May 1: Payer

No class April 26.

May 1: Self-evaluation due.

May 5 (Saturday): 7:45-9:45am, FINAL EXAM