This course introduces students to the field of medical humanities, highlighting the complex and important relationship between medicine, literature and popular culture. It focuses on the representation of medicine in both literary and televisual texts and is divided into modules based on four different kinds of  medical representation:

1) Medical autobiography and reflective accounts of medical practice by doctors and other professionals

2) Pathography (personal accounts of illness)

3) Medical television drama

4) Medical reality television

These four modules will be linked through 6 key themes explored throughout the course:

Representations of the ideal medical professional (and challenges to this idealised identity)

Representations of the ideal patient (and challenges to this idealised identity)

The idea of medicine as performance  

The cultural construction of medical practice

The relationship between narrative and illness

The relationship between drama and medicine

• 6,000 words of written assignments (90%), divided into one short essay (1,500-2,000 words) and one long assignment (4,000-4,500 words)
• Class participation (10%)

24 hours of lectures/seminars.