Course Details

What does it mean to be healthy? Why are some practices today considered to be healthy but were considered unhealthy in the past? What counts as an illness or disease, and why? Rather than a static quality one possesses or lacks, “health” is a practice, socially constructed and enacted via subtle rhetorical actions and social performances, informed by intersections of privilege and power. This course will take as our starting point how language and argument shape our understanding of health, how health is understood in relation to wellness, illness, and disability, and how the meaning of health has become a site of argument and controversy. Students will explore the role of language and culture in the creation of diagnoses, definitions and classifications of diseases, and treatment; our complex lived experiences with illness (physical and mental); the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and disability in experiences of illness and healing; and the role of activism and advocacy in healthcare. The course does not assume any background in science or medicine, but rather studies the political, ethical, and humanities-based aspects of medicine. One of our recurrent topics, in fact, will be to consider how non-experts interact with medicine and its technical vocabularies. Although the primary objective of the course is to understand the rhetorical and cultural dimensions of health and medicine, a secondary objective is for students to become more savvy patients and, for any students who hope to wield the stethoscope one day, more insightful and compassionate health care providers.