ENG 237 - Healing Stories

In this class, students will explore how medicine can inspire literature, and how narrative practice can strengthen medicine. We will look at the depiction of illness in prose and consider the challenges of communicating pain and illness in words. We will read the work of healthcare providers who process their medical experience through writing. We will do close-readings of patient narratives using tools and terms generally associated with the literary arts - plot, character, conflict-to understand each patient’s story deeply and thoroughly. Finally, with a focus on culture, race, ethnicity, class, and gender, we will consider how representation of illness through narrative can serve as a means of social critique. Satisfies the Literary Perspectives General Education Requirement.

(Cr: 3)