Spring 2019 Course Offerings

The following courses are being offered during the Spring 2019 semester. All of the courses listed are related to the health humanities and qualify for the undergraduate literature, medicine, and culture minor.

Anthropology

ANTH 147: Comparative Healing Systems (SS, GL)
Peter Redfield | TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm + 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 319: Global Health (SS, GL)
Amanda Thompson | MWF 10:10-11:00am + Recitation

This class explores some of the historical, biological, economic, medical, and social issues surrounding globalization and health consequences.

ANTH 470: Medicine and Anthropology (SS)
Martha King | TuTh 9:30-10:45am + Recitation

This course examines cultural understandings of health, illness, and medical systems from an anthropological perspective with a special focus on Western medicine.

English

ENGL 690: Early Modern English Medical Discourse and Literature
Mary Floyd-Wilson | TuTh 12:30-1:45pm

In this course, we will read a range of texts on early modern medicine, including plague tracts, anatomical treatises, regimens, herbals, and midwifery manuals to consider how this material may inform our understanding of the period’s beliefs about bodies, sex, gender, emotions, temperament, disease, mortality, and sin. We will also examine how this medical discourse can instruct our interpretation of more familiar literary genres of the period, including drama, poetry, and prose. We will ask a range of questions, such as: What social narratives can we discern in medical writing? Why were writers obsessed with melancholy? How did people explain the plague? What were the common methods of curing? What were the cultural assumptions about professional and lay medical practitioners? How did religion shape medicine and sickness? When and how did physic intersect with magic? Literary texts may include works by William Shakespeare, John Webster, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Edmund Spenser, and more.

Geography

GEOG 222: Health and Medical Geography (SS, GL)
Michael Emch | TuTh 12:30-1:45pm

The human ecology of health is studied by analyzing the cultural/environmental interactions that lie behind world patterns of disease distribution, diffusion, and treatment, and the ways these are being altered by development. Previously offered as GEOG 445. (GHA).

Media and Journalism

MEJO 560: Environmental and Science Journalism
Thomas Linden | MW 12:30-1:45pm

Prepare students to work as environmental and science journalists. The course emphasizes writing skills in all delivery formats and interpreting environmental, science, and medical information for consumers.

Public Policy

PLCY 565: Global Health Policy (GL)
Benjamin Meier | TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm

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.

Sociology

SOCI 422: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness (SS)
Taylor Hargrove | TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm
Taylor Hargrove | TuTh 12:30pm-1:45pm

Examines the uniqueness of the sociological perspective in understanding mental health and illness. Draws upon various theoretical perspectives to best understand patterns, trends, and definitions of mental health and illness in social context. Focuses on how social factors influence definitions, perceptions, patterns, and trends of mental health and illness.

SOCI 469: Health and Society (SS)
Liana Richardson | TuTh 9:30-10:45am
Liana Richardson | TuTh 11:00am-12:15pm

The primary objective of the course is to explain how and why particular social arrangements affect the types and distribution of diseases, as well as the types of health promotion and disease prevention practices that societies promote.