Global Health and the Medical Humanities

In this course students will use literary texts to explore how global forces such as colonialism, climate change, and humanitarian intervention impact the health of people and communities around the world. The literary voices on our syllabus hail from multiple continents but cohere in their concern for global health disparities driven by medical racism and other historical forces that compromise access to (and quality of) healthcare. Students will investigate literary representations of epilepsy, malaria, cancer, substance abuse, eating disorders, food insecurity, mental health issues, and AIDS.

Class materials will explore how gender and sexuality condition understandings of wellness and illness and address western medicine’s fraught attempts to accommodate culturally specific norms and healing practices. Authors may include Amitav Ghosh, Anne Fadiman, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Frantz Fanon, Hanya Yanagihara, Audre Lorde, NoViolet Bulawayo, Indra Sinha, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Jesmyn Ward.