An Introduction to the Health Humanities

Module description

The chief educational aim of this module is to explore the foundations of the medical or health humanities by considering its evolution over time. The medical humanities is a name that can be applied to any attempt to use ideas or frames of reference deriving from humanities disciplines to any question in which medicine has a say. The term dates from the 1940s when the first initiatives took place. It has always drawn inspiration from medical sociology, medical anthropology, and other social sciences but it has also always been in dialogue with clinical work. The module will aim to trace the history of the field as a whole and will lay special emphasis on the role of the narrative turn in the 1980s and on disability theory in giving rise to the field as it is constituted today. It will consider the medical humanities not only in the English speaking world but also in France (Canguilhem, Foucault) and Germany (Gadamer). The second half of the module will focus on the most exciting developments in the field today, e.g. the creation of the black medical humanities, the relationship with the social determinants of health, childhood adversity, and epigenetics.

By engaging with methodological questions surrounding sickness and disability, the module will address the lived experience of a group of people whose social suffering is routinely scanted. In addition to sessions on how the field might respond to black and ethnic minority experiences of health (e.g. schizophrenia diagnoses among young black men), the module will also engage with women's health experiences, aging and the social determinants of health (i.e. class).

This module is aimed at three possible types of student: those who are curious about the medical/health humanities; those who want to incorporate medical/health humanities ways of thinking into their dissertations; and students who are wondering about doing a conversion course in medicine (or are thinking about working in health more generally).

Assessment details

Presentation (15%); 4000 Word Essay (85%)

Teaching pattern

One two-hour seminar weekly

Module description disclaimer

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Please note that the module descriptions above are related to the current academic year and are subject to change.