ENG 255D & GLH 242A - Literature & Medicine: Contagious Stories! (Spring 2021)
Emily Dickinson once wrote that “infection in the sentence breeds.” Diseases are stories. They have characters—patient zero and the asymptomatic carrier, for example. They have conflict, crisis, and resolution in the form of infection, spread, panic, treatment, and restoration. They are comedies and tragedies; they are poetry and prose. This course will examine the ways in which we write about disease and illness and how our understanding of contemporary and historic diseases are shaped by language, storytelling, and literature. In addition to reading fiction, drama, and poetry, we will also read medical memoirs and historic accounts of global diseases such as cholera, flu, plague, tuberculosis, AIDS, SARS, and COVID-19. This course is a W course and is cross listed in the English Department and Global Health Program but is open to any student interested in literature and medicine.
