I. Course Title: Narratives of Illness, Disability, and Caretaking
II. Course Number: ENGL 210
III. Credit Hours: 3 credits
IV. Prerequisites: Core 101 or ENGL 111
V. Course Description:
A survey of fictional, dramatic, and/or auto/biographical narratives that focus on
the experience of illness, disability, and caretaking from a variety of perspectives,
including that of patients and healthcare practitioners. Narratives chosen for study
represent a range of genres, styles, periods, and modes. This course functions as
an introduction to the goals and primary methods of the health humanities and is required
for students pursuing the Health Humanities minor. Lecture.
VI. Detailed Description of Content of the Course:
This course is a survey of illness, disability, and caretaking narratives that simultaneously
introduces students to the history, aims, and major methodologies of the health humanities,
an interdisciplinary field with strong ties to literary and cultural studies. Depending
on instructor preference and areas of expertise, course topics may include the following:
- History of the health humanities as a discipline, including its evolution from a course
in the medical school curriculum to a field that operates in multiple educational
contexts and encompasses many methodologies.
- Health humanities’ role in preparing clinical healthcare practitioners, students in
health adjacent careers, and lay individuals who will need to manage their own health
needs as well as those of others.
- The main outcomes of the health humanities and how they are shaped by one’s perspective
relative to clinical healthcare; some of those outcomes include: empathy, professionalism,
suspending judgment, perspective taking, critical consciousness, social justice advocacy,
and emotional/psychological regulation.
- The definition of narrative.
- The definition of “lifewriting (i.e., biography, and memoir), and why lifewriting
about illness, disability, and caretaking is important.
- Some controversies and misconceptions about lifewriting, (e.g., historical versus
perspectival truth) and why they matter in the context of lifewriting texts about
illness, disability, and caretaking.
- The extent to which a variety of discursive and audio/visual materials can be considered
“literary texts” and can be analyzed using methodologies from literary and cultural
studies.
- The “close reading” of narrative and other texts, one of the primary methodologies
of the health humanities as well as literary studies.
- The concept of “narrative medicine,” or the similarities between narrative texts and
the narratives told by patients/health care practitioners in clinical settings.
- Illness and disability as metaphor and metaphors of illness and disability, and the
consequences of regarding illness and disability in this way.
- The relationship between narratives of illness, disability, and caretaking and their
larger cultural, social, scientific contexts.
- The extent to which narratives of illness, disability, and caretaking reflect, remake,
and mobilize notions of race, gender, class, sexuality, etc., and their intersections.
- Controversies surrounding the production, consumption, and critique of illness, disability,
and caretaking narratives.
- The basic tenets of academic writing about literature and/or writing for public audiences.
VI. Detailed Description of Conduct of Course:
The following instructional strategies may be used in the course, depending on instructor
preference:
- Lecture
- “Flipped” learning exercises
- Small- and large-group discussion
- Guest lecture
- Problem-based learning
- Writing-to-learn
- Collaborative learning
- Peer-led learning
- Distance learning and computer-assisted instruction
VII. Goals and Objectives of the Course:
By the end of the course, a student will be able to successfully:
- Define the health humanities and recognize the role of literary studies in this interdisciplinary
field.
- Explain the purpose of the health humanities for various groups, including patients
and healthcare providers as well as undergraduates pursuing careers in and outside
of the health sciences.
- Define the concept of “narrative,” and recognize the basic conventions of select literary
genres.
- Apply close reading strategies to texts by analyzing the larger significance of choices
related to language, imagery, tone, etc.
- Analyze tropes, themes, and metaphors related to illness, disability, caretaking,
etc., and compare their emergence across literary genres, styles, and historical periods.
- Understand the relationship between (1) narrative tropes, themes, and metaphors related
to illness, disability, and caretaking, and (2) concomitant scientific, historic,
and socio-cultural contexts.
- Analyze the ways in which gender, race, class, sexuality, etc., are implicated in
narratives of illness, disability, and caretaking.
- Examine illness, disability, and caretaking as matters of rhetoric.
- Articulate the importance of accessibility in social, clinical, and other contexts.
- Compare the perspectives of healthcare practitioners, patients, caretakers, and other
groups, as these points of view emerge in narrative texts.
- Reflect on the relationship between one’s experience/interests and the health humanities.
- Develop a greater ability for suspending judgment, perspective taking, empathy, and
critical consciousness.
- Produce analytical, argumentative, and/or reflective writing about narratives of illness,
disability, and caretaking for academic and/or non-academic audiences.
VIII. Assessment Measures:
Students will be assessed using a variety of formative and summative measures. Depending
on instructor preference, students may be assessed via:
- Quizzes and homework
- Informal, in-class writing exercises
- Informal, targeted writing activities completed outside of class, such as reading
responses, journals, or logs
- Formal composition activities, such as traditional academic essays but also reflective,
professional, digital, and multimodal writing assignments
- Outlines, drafts, and revision work of major assignments
- Peer-to-peer writing workshops
- Creative writing
- Creative projects, including “remixed” multimodal writing assignments
- Essay exams
- Oral exams
- Collaborative/individual projects or presentations
- Portfolios or ePortfolios
- Class discussion
Review and Approval
August 2020