Literature and Medicine, Southern Illinois University, Springfield

Literature is a repository of intuitions and judgments about the human experience, and, as such, it provides insights into the complexity of personality. The novel with its inherent thematic concern for people, provides a form of fiction uniquely capable of illustrating the crises of human life. In selected instances, it provides an avenue to explore both the myth and the reality of disease and its effects on patients, physicians, and the people around them. The course is designed to engage students in an in-depth analysis of works of fiction which, through guided study, allows them to develop the interpretive skills necessary to become aware of what fiction teaches us about our understanding of health and disease and the way in which their own clinical experiences can provide a useful context for interpretation of texts. Elective only. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.