Fall 2026 Course Offerings

ENGL 071H: FYS – Healers & Patients
Jane Thrailkill
MWF 2:30-3:20pm

FREN 80 Déjà vu
Jessica Tanner
TuTh 12:30-1:45pm

ENGL 163: Introduction to Health Humanities
Kym Weed
MWF 9:05-9:55am

While human health is often understood as the purview of biomedicine, humanities methods can illuminate the social meaning of health, illness, disability, and mortality. The interdisciplinary field of health humanities calls upon methods and ways of knowing from a range of academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to explore human health, illness, and disability. In this introduction to Health Humanities, we will apply the critical reading and analytical practices of the humanities to a range of texts that explore material, cultural, and political aspects of human health. Topics may include narrative medicine, medical training, illness narratives, disability studies, chronic illness, patient advocacy, and graphic medicine.

ENGL 268/268H: Medicine, Literature, and Culture
Jane Thrailkill
MoWe 8:00-8:50am + Recitation

From popular shows like The Pitt to the many memoirs of illness published each year, stories about human struggles with suffering and mortality captivate audiences. Illness, disability, and care are not just individual matters; they occur within social and institutional contexts. This course focuses on powerful stories from various genres—memoir, journalism, poetry, fiction, TED talks, and documentary films—that address some big questions: how do human beings weather and make sense of illness? How does healthcare relieve and/or exacerbate suffering? why do some kinds of suffering receive care and compassion while others do not? Students will also have the opportunity to write an in-depth illness narrative about someone they know.

ENGL 303: Scientific and Technical Communication
Ruby Pappoe
MoWeFr 1:25pm – 2:15pm

Advanced course focused on adapting scientific and technical content to public or non-expert audiences in oral, written, and digital forms. Assignments may include composing professional reports, developing multimedia instructions for a product, or developing an interactive exhibit.

ENGL 370: Race, Health, and Narrative
Cynthia Current
MoWeFr 1:25pm – 2:15pm
MoWeFr 2:30pm – 3:20pm

This interdisciplinary course explores how issues of health, medicine, and illness are impacted by questions of race in 20th-century American literature and popular culture. Specific areas covered include pain, death, the family and society, reproduction, mental illness, aging, human subject experimentation, the doctor-patient relationship, pesticides, and bioethics.

ENGL 763: Methods in Health Humanities
Kym Weed
We 11:00am-2:00pm

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar will introduce students to topics and methods in health humanities. In recent years, scholars have sought to define the field through a broader set of research practices and objects of study. Therefore, this course will sample critical and creative texts that represent this field-expanding trend. Students will read pairings of representative critical and primary texts in health humanities and related fields including medical humanities, narrative medicine, disability studies, medical anthropology, graphic medicine, and rhetoric of health and medicine. Together, we will define the scope, methods, and values that constitute the field of health humanities.

AAAD 058: Health Inequality in Africa and the African Diaspora
Lydia Boyd
TuTh 2:00 – 3:15pm

This first-year seminar examines the ways that healthcare access and health itself are shaped by social, racial, and economic inequalities in our society and others. The geographic focus of this course is Africa and the United States. Drawing on research in medical anthropology, sociology, public health, and history, we will gain an understanding of the political, economic, and social factors that create health inequalities.

AAAD 387: HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Diaspora
Lydia Boyd
TuTh 3:30pm – 4:45pm

This course explores the history and contemporary politics of HIV/AIDS in African communities and across the Diaspora. The differing trajectories of the epidemic on the continent, in the West, and in the Caribbean and Latin America will be explored.

ANTH 147: Comparative Healing Systems
Michele Rivkin-Fish
TuTh 5:00pm – 6:15pm + Recitation 

In this course we compare a variety of healing beliefs and practices so that students may gain a better understanding of their own society, culture, and medical system.

ANTH 270: Living Medicine
Martha King
MoWeFr 1:25pm – 2:15pm

This course examines the social and cultural experience of medicine, the interpersonal and personal aspects of healing and being healed. It explores how medicine shapes and is shaped by those who inhabit this vital arena of human interaction: physicians, nurses, other professionals and administrators; patients; families; friends and advocates.

ANTH 341: Anthropology of Fitness Culture
Emily Curtin
MoWeFr 11:15am – 12:05pm

This course examines the global rise of fitness culture and its relationship to health, social change, inequalities, gender, and globalization through anthropological and sociological texts. Students will also develop qualitative research skills, including participant observation and interviewing, through designing and conducting their own ethnographic study in a local fitness space.

ANTH 348: Gender, Sexuality, and Health
Emily Curtin
MoWeFr 1:25pm – 2:15pm

This course introduces gender and sexuality as theoretical concepts while exploring the persistence of gender inequality in relation to health. Topics include intersectional feminism, reproductive politics, masculinity, HIV, and gender bias in biomedicine, examining how gender and sexuality shape institutional, intimate, and everyday life.

ANTH 389: Special Topics in Medical Anthropology – Research Methods and Experiences
Mark Sorensen
Th 9:30am – 12:00pm

This course exposes medical anthropology students to a wide range of social science methods used to conduct research and analyze data. The course focuses on fieldwork methods such as participant observation and interviewing while also teaching students how to write, organize, and analyze fieldnotes. Students will complete original fieldwork exercises and develop skills for conducting and analyzing ethnographic research.

ANTH 390: Special Topics in Medical Anthropology
Emily Curtin
TuTh 2:00pm – 3:15pm

This seminar-style course explores rotating topics in medical anthropology, allowing students to engage closely with a faculty member’s research area. The Fall 2026 topic focuses on “Bodies Under Capitalism” and examines how economic systems shape health, bodies, and medical experiences.

ANTH 405: Mental Health, Psychiatry, and Culture
Jocelyn Chua
MoWeFr 1:25pm – 2:15pm

This course examines mental illness as a subjective experience, social process, cultural symbol, and object of medical intervention. It explores how psychiatric categories and treatments shape personal experiences of illness and how psychiatry reflects cultural ideas about self and society across different global contexts.

ANTH 448: Health and Medicine in the American South
Martha King
MoWeFr 11:15am – 12:05pm

This course examines the history and culture of the American South through the lens of health and healthcare. Using anthropological approaches, students explore the individual, social, and political dimensions of medicalized bodies in the region from the eighteenth century to the present.

ANTH 540: Planetary Crises and Ecological and Cultural Transitions
Margaret Wiener
TuTh 2:00pm – 3:15pm

This course analyzes contemporary social and environmental crises and examines potential ecological and cultural transitions beyond current development models. Students engage with interdisciplinary perspectives and conduct research exploring alternative approaches to addressing global environmental challenges.

ANTH 582: Fieldwork with Social Models of Well-Being
Michele Rivkin-Fish
TuTh 2:00pm – 3:15pm

This course explores approaches to well-being that emphasize social relations and structural change rather than medical treatment alone. Students learn conceptual frameworks from disability studies, occupational science, and critical gerontology while applying anthropological fieldwork methods through participant observation and interviews with local organizations.

BIOL/ARTS 409H: Art and Science – Merging Printmaking and Biology
Beth Grabowski & Bob Goldstein
Mo 10:10am – 12:55pm

This interdisciplinary course brings together art and science students to explore connections between biological observation and artistic printmaking. Students learn laboratory techniques and biological concepts related to microscopic life and biological motion while developing artworks using printmaking methods such as relief, stencil, and intaglio processes.

BIO 351/351L: Frontiers of Fermentation: Microbes and Microbiomes

Fermentation is a process that requires bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms to produce diverse chemical changes. Gourmands and everyday consumers can quickly name some of the most popular fermented foods and beverages we consume. The course will analyze the role of microbes in production, preservation, and enhancement of materials across a variety of industries and settings. Through hands-on exercises, we will experiment with materials to grow our own microbial environments.

BIO 405: Good Genes: Human Reproduction in the Social Context
Lillian Zwemmer
TuTh 2:00-3:15pm

Reproduction is the most ancient feature of life and a continued focus of cutting-edge medical technology. This interdisciplinary course examines our biological imperative and cultural quest to make babies. We examine reproduction from the perspectives of bioethics, reproductive medicine, behavioral economics, genetic engineering, disability studies, and gender studies. Teaching methods include traditional lectures, in-class discussions, group work, peer teaching, and occasional flipped-classroom. Students who previously took BIOL 89/490 with Dr. Zwemer may not enroll.

ENEC 201: Introduction to Environment and Society
Gregory Gangi
MoWeFr 12:20pm – 1:10pm + Recitation

Human-environment interactions are examined through analytical methods from the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. The focus is on the role of social, political, and economic factors in controlling interactions between society and the environment in historical and cultural contexts. Three lecture hours and one recitation hour a week.

ENEC 201H: Introduction to Environment and Society
Gregory Gangi
MoWeFr 10:10am – 11:00am + Recitation

Human-environment interactions are examined through analytical methods from the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. The focus is on the role of social, political, and economic factors in controlling interactions between society and the environment in historical and cultural contexts. Three lecture hours and one recitation hour a week.

ENEC 373/PLCY 373: Confronting Climate Change in the Anthropocene
Angel Hsu
TuTh 11:00am – 12:15pm

Climate change-perhaps the defining issue of the 21st century-is a highly complex problem that requires interdisciplinary collaboration to develop policy responses. This course explores the science of climate change and uses theories from multiple disciplines, including law, political science, economics, and earth and atmospheric sciences, to frame solutions to this global challenge. Students will apply quantitative and qualitative tools to understand causes and impacts of climate change, as well as policy responses.

ENEC 375/COMM 375: Environmental Advocacy
Haley Schneider
MoWeFr 11:15am – 12:30am + Recitation

Explores rhetorical means of citizen influence of practices affecting our natural and human environment; also, study of communication processes and dilemmas of redress of environmental grievances in communities and workplace.

GEOG 052: Political Ecology of Health and Disease
Michael Emch
TuTh 2:00 – 3:15pm

Explores rhetorical means of citizen influence of practices affecting our natural and human environment; also, study of communication processes and dilemmas of redress of environmental grievances in communities and workplace.

GEOG 240: Introduction to Environmental Justice
Danielle Purifoy
MoWeFr 2:30 – 3:20pm

Environmental justice is about social equity and its relationship to the environment. This course provides an introduction to the principles, history, and scholarship of environmental justice. It traces the origins of the movement in the US and globally and its relationship to environmentalism. Students will use case studies and engagement to become familiar with environmental justice concerns related to food systems, environmental health, climate change, and economic development.

HPM 300: The U.S. Health System
Melanie Studer
TuTh 3:30 – 4:45pm

This course provides an overview of the U.S. health care system, including how the system is structured and financed and the delivery of health care services. Students will explore the performance of the system in terms of population health, quality, access, cost and equity, and approaches to strengthening health system performance. This course is intended for students who are pursuing a Business of Health minor and other juniors and seniors who are not pursuing a Health Policy and Management major.

HPM 661: Global Health Law & Policy

Coursework will focus on public policy approaches to global health, employing interdisciplinary methodologies to understand selected public health policies, programs, and interventions. For students who have a basic understanding of public health. Course previously offered as PLCY/HPM 565.

HNRS 390.002: Premodern Pandemics
Henry Gruber
TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm

Premodern Pandemics takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of pandemic diseases and their effects on history in the period before ca. 1600 CE. We will integrate the close reading of primary source accounts with the latest research in the fields of epidemiology and ancient pathogen genetics. Our case studies begin in the ancient Mediterranean and include the so-called Plague of Athens, the Antonine and Cyprian plagues of the Roman Empire, and the great bubonic plague outbreaks known as the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. We will then cross the Atlantic and examine the role of disease in the encounter between Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous Americans after 1492. Students will work on their writing skills, engage in a group digital project, and present on scholarly articles, all leading up to a major research paper.

HNRS 390.003: Narrative and Medicine
Terry Holt
We 2:30-5:00pm

This seminar explores the role of narrative in medicine from two sides: the patient’s experience of illness, and the caregiver’s experience of providing for the sick.  As a writing workshop, this course offers students a supportive environment in which to explore their own experiences and refine their writing skills. It also provides an opportunity for service work in a variety of clinical settings, in which students will have a chance to participate in medical care. (Please note that each student will be responsible for arranging to perform volunteer work at UNC Hospitals, and that these arrangements must be completed on line over the summer, usually in June, at https://www.uncmedicalcenter.org/uncmc/support/volunteer-services/ug-volunteers-/ ).

Coming soon!

PHIL 165-001: Bioethics
Kendall Baker
TuTh 8:00 – 9:15am

An examination of ethical issues in the life sciences and technologies, medicine, public health, and/or human interaction with nonhuman animals or the living environment.

PHIL 165-002: Bioethics
Tabitha Mascobetto
MoWeFr 8:00 – 9:15am

An examination of ethical issues in the life sciences and technologies, medicine, public health, and/or human interaction with nonhuman animals or the living environment.

PSYC 504-001: Health Psychology
Karen Gil
TuTh 11:00am – 12:15pm
TuTh 12:30pm – 1:45pm

Coming soon!

Coming soon!

SOCI 277H: Societies and Genomics
Guang Guo
TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm

This course examines how advances in molecular genetics challenge the long-standing social science assumption that individuals are essentially the same at birth and shaped entirely by environment. Designed for non-science majors with no prerequisites, it provides an accessible introduction to genomics while helping science students broaden their perspectives beyond medicine and disease. Topics include gene–environment interaction, twin studies, basic molecular genetics, DNA data collection, genome-wide association studies, race and ancestry, gender, health and education, evolutionary psychology, epigenetics, CRISPR, genetically modified organisms, research validity, and ethical issues. The course emphasizes the joint influence of genetic and social factors in shaping human traits.

SOCI 422-001: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness
Johannah Palomo
MoWeFr 9:05am – 9:55am

This course applies a sociological lens to the study of mental health and illness, providing an overview of three broad areas of sociological research on mental health: definitions and measurement; social origins; and societal responses. The primary goal is to understand mental health and illness as a result of social circumstances – moving away from individual-level explanations to consider how the definitions, causes, and consequences of mental illness are structured by interpersonal, institutional, and cultural factors.

SOCI 422-002: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness
Kaitlin Joshua
MoWeFr 8:00am – 9:15am

This course applies a sociological lens to the study of mental health and illness, providing an overview of three broad areas of sociological research on mental health: definitions and measurement; social origins; and societal responses. The primary goal is to understand mental health and illness as a result of social circumstances – moving away from individual-level explanations to consider how the definitions, causes, and consequences of mental illness are structured by interpersonal, institutional, and cultural factors.

SOCI 422-003: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness
Mia Smith
MoWeFr 2:30pm – 3:20pm

This course applies a sociological lens to the study of mental health and illness, providing an overview of three broad areas of sociological research on mental health: definitions and measurement; social origins; and societal responses. The primary goal is to understand mental health and illness as a result of social circumstances – moving away from individual-level explanations to consider how the definitions, causes, and consequences of mental illness are structured by interpersonal, institutional, and cultural factors.

SOCI 469-001: Health and Society
Grace Franklyn
MoWeFr 9:05 – 9:55am

Health is not simply an individual-level characteristic affected by genes, behavior, and healthcare. Indeed, individual-level health is profoundly affected by social resources like education, money, and friendships; institutions like churches and schools; and larger contexts such as neighborhoods and states. This course broadens the study of health far beyond the individual to think deeply about the social forces, including inequalities, that are important for the health of individuals and populations.

SOCI 469-002: Health and Society
Savannah Salato
MoWeFr 12:20 – 1:10pm

Health is not simply an individual-level characteristic affected by genes, behavior, and healthcare. Indeed, individual-level health is profoundly affected by social resources like education, money, and friendships; institutions like churches and schools; and larger contexts such as neighborhoods and states. This course broadens the study of health far beyond the individual to think deeply about the social forces, including inequalities, that are important for the health of individuals and populations.

SOCI 469-001: Health and Society
Alexandra Ro
MoWeFr 8:00 – 9:15am

Health is not simply an individual-level characteristic affected by genes, behavior, and healthcare. Indeed, individual-level health is profoundly affected by social resources like education, money, and friendships; institutions like churches and schools; and larger contexts such as neighborhoods and states. This course broadens the study of health far beyond the individual to think deeply about the social forces, including inequalities, that are important for the health of individuals and populations.

Coming soon!