Medical Humanities: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medicine and Society

This course introduces students to the Medical Humanities, an interdisciplinary research field that acknowledges questions of health and illness as related in the first place to the experience of being human, and hence deserving to be studied beyond a mere biomedical viewpoint.

What can history, philosophy, art, or literature teach us about health, disease, practices, and policies of care? How can humanities have an impact on medical practice and vice-versa? 

Through the analysis of a wide variety of sources (novels, essays, art-works, graphic-novels, movies), we examine how arts and humanities offer different ways of thinking about health, illness, healing, and care, which are complementary rather than opposed to the scientific ones. 

Watch the course on YouTube.