SOMGEN 272:
Narrative Ethics and Medicine
In this course, we will read seminal contributions to the theory and practice of narrative ethics and narrative medicine, with a number of central questions in mind: how, for instance, does literature aid in the understanding of clinical experience? what are the connections between ethics, literary rewriting, and clinical review? in what ways has medicine remained a form of art, and why should providers of care be asked to read fiction, drama, or poetry? We will select theory from physicians (Rita Charon, Arthur Kleinman), recipients of care (Arthur Frank, Susan Sontag, Harriet McBryde), literary critics (WC Booth, JH Miller, Elaine Scarry), and philosophers on narrative (Martha Nussbaum, Judith Butler). We will also select literary readings from practitioners of literature and medicine, which may include Anton Chekhov, William Carlos Williams, Richard Selzer, Oliver Sacks, Perri Klass, Anne Fadiman, Margaret Edson, Jean-Dominique Bauby, and Abraham Verghese. Our seminar discussion and analysis will therefore focus on a history of attempts in the field to re-examine clinical cases, with literary attention as a central mode of ethical practice and care.
| Units: 3-5