Medical Humanities MED HUM

MED HUM 1 Health, Wellness, and Conception of the Body

Units

4

(III or IV)

Asks what is health and who gets to have it? What is considered a “healthy” or “sick” body? We analyze historical and contemporary experiences of illness, medicine, and caregiving, including how patients represent their bodies and healing.

Offered: Fall 2026 (3 sections)

MED HUM 3 Art and Medicine

Units

4

(II or IV)

Analyzes the relationship between medicine and the visual arts from the late medieval to modern periods, covering topics such as anatomy, optical medical technologies, gender and race in medicine, and popular representations of disease and doctors.

Not on the Fall 2026 schedule.

MED HUM 137 Surviving Epidemics

Units

4

Prerequisite

Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement

Same as HISTORY 137

Restrictions: Juniors, Sophmores, and Seniors only

Analyzes diverse social and cultural responses to epidemics from mid-nineteenth century to the present, including incarceration, caregiving, and disability rights. Using interdisciplinary materials and collaborative activities, students interpret strategies and outcomes of Indigenous, racialized, and marginalized communities surviving great illness.

Not on the Fall 2026 schedule.

MED HUM 195 Capstone Seminar: The Clinical Moral Laboratory

Units

4

Prerequisite

MED HUM 1 or MED HUM 3 or GEN&SEX 60A. Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement

Interdisciplinary exploration of the clinical encounter, and the importance of meaning making in these “moral laboratories.” Students enter the clinical space as participant observers, and reflect on how the clinical site informs and challenges reading practices.

Not on the Fall 2026 schedule.

MED HUM 200 Critical Perspectives in Medical Humanities

Units

4

Analyzes social and cultural understandings of the body, health, illness, medicine, and disease. Themes include critical histories of the body; non-compliant subjects interacting with medicine; racial-sexual hierarchies of health; and theories and expressions of pain and suffering.

Offered: Fall 2026 (1 section)