Students will practice reading, discussing, and writing about 
texts within the Health Humanities in order to ponder questions 
such as:	
• What constitutes "good health" in the artistic productions of 
different cultures or subcultures (for example, in the 
sophisticated U.S. hospitals of ER versus the mountain villages 
of the Hmong described by Anne Fadiman?)
• Who reads these books or watches these shows and why?
• What do you understand by “health literacy,” and to what 
extent can or should artistic or cultural products foster such 
an outcome?
• What narrative constraints, if any, do medical dramas from 
different periods share? 	
• What characteristics does the "good doctor" or the "bad 
doctor" have in these texts? 	
• What are some of the specific equity concerns that are raised 
by the identity of the healer or the patient? 
 
Outcomes will include regular short writing assignments, 
individual and group presentations, and at least one longer, 
sequenced writing assignment that incorporates peer-review and 
revision.

The course outline will vary depending upon the instructor; we 
recommend that interested students look at the detailed course 
description on the English Department website for fuller 
information. Sample texts might include: 

Anne Fadiman / The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Laurence Sterne / Tristram Shandy

Louisa Alcott / Civil War Hospital Sketches

Michael Ondaatje / The English Patient

Richard Selzer / Doctor Stories

Abraham Verghese / My Own Country: A Doctor's Story 

Lisa Sanders / Diagnosis (Netflix/New York Times)

Lamar K. Dodd / “Heart Series” (Lamar Dodd School of Art)

Oliver Sacks / The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Darren Aronofsky, dir./  Requiem for A Dream

Mike Nichols, dir. / W;t

Episodes from popular television medical dramas such as E.R., 
Grey’s Anatomy, or House, M.D.