MINOR IN MEDICAL HUMANITIES

Program of Study

To declare your minor in the Medical Humanities, please complete the online Minor Declaration Form here.

Course of Study

Medical humanities is an emerging field that uses the methods of humanistic inquiry to engage the discourses of medicine, health, and medical science. This minor is based in the Department of English and draws on many other departments in Arts and Science. For all students, a medical humanities approach offers multiple modes of scholarly inquiry and possibilities for reflection on the complex interplay of biology, narrative, and human history. This multidisciplinary discourse provides ways of considering and reconsidering illness, health, healing, trauma, birth, death, and disability, and offers new ways of looking at history, society, literature and culture, and technology. The field is also energized by scholarly research and pedagogical approaches designed to enrich professional training in medical and health careers and encourage self-reflection and emotional support for medical students and practitioners. Through the medical humanities, we explore perspectives on human bodies and what becomes of them, and also how human minds formulate and tell those stories individually and collectively.

The minor also provides an opportunity for students to study with a wide array of CAS faculty members  whose research interests examine medicine, health and healing through the lenses of the humanities, arts, and social sciences.

REQUIREMENTS FOR MINOR

To complete a minor in medical humanities, students must complete four courses (16 points). Two of these courses are required, and two are chosen from a list of approved electives. Students must earn a grade of C or higher to count a class toward the minor.

The following two courses (8 points) are required for the minor. They may be taken in either order, but students are advised to begin with MHUM-UA 101.

  • Introduction to the Medical Humanities (MHUM-UA 101; offered every fall)

  • Pandemics and Plagues (MHUM-UA 102; offered every spring)

Two courses (8 points) are required from the list of approved electives below (students should check with the listed Department to see if the course is being offered in the semester they wish to take it):

Restrictions on Credit Toward the Minor

One of the four courses for the Minor may be taken outside of the College of Arts and Science in another division of New York University, subject to prior approval by the Director of Medical Humanities; the minor’s steering committee may, from time to time, add non-CAS courses to the list of approved electives. Students may double-count one course as an elective for this minor and a College Core Curriculum requirement, or double-count one course between this minor and a second minor or a major. Petitions to double-count more than one course for other majors or minors will be considered by special permission of the Director of the Medical Humanities minor.  Courses taken Pass/Fail do not count toward the minor.

List of Approved Electives

  • Medical Anthropology (ANTH-UA 35)

  • Global Biocultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Health (ANTH-UA 36)

  • Urban Design and Health (ARTH-UA 682)

  • Texts and Ideas: Children and Childhood: Medical, Historical, and Cultural Perspectives (CORE-UA 400)

  • Texts and Ideas: Contagion (CORE-UA 400)

  • Expressive Culture (Topics): Visual Arts and the Arts of Healing in the Italian Renaissance (CORE-UA 9760, NYU Florence)

  • Pandemic Reading (COLIT-UA 141)

  • Medical Humanities: Writing the Body, Writing the Mind (ENGL-UA 800)

  • ShakesCare: Shakespeare and Medicine (ENGL-UA 415)

  • Pandemics in World History (HIST-UA 79)

  • History of Medicine (HIST-UA 158)

  • History of Western Medicine (HIST-UA 202)

  • Plagues and Public Health in Renaissance Italy (HIST-UA 253)

  • The Beat: Separating Hope from Hype (JOUR-UA 201)

  • Medical Ethics (PHIL-UA 50)

  • Race and Reproduction (SCA-UA 158)

  • Sociology of Medicine (SOC-UA 414)

COURSES

Required Courses

These two courses (8 points) may be taken in either order, but students are advised to begin with MHUM-UA 101.

Introduction to the Medical Humanities

MHUM-UA 101 Prerequisite: none. Required for the minor in medical humanities. Colloquium. Offered every fall. Deer, Klass. 4 points.

This course introduces students to the medical humanities, an emerging field that uses the methods of humanistic inquiry to explore and challenge discourses of medicine, health, and medical science. What is a human being? How do we know when a body is healthy? How should we treat disease and injury? How are questions of individual well-being, public health and medical treatment affected by gender, race, and class? Over the course of the semester, we will examine the overlap between medical and humanistic knowledge by reading various forms of writing and rhetoric that attempt to come to terms with these questions, from Platonic dialogues about poetry and writing to colonial debates about smallpox inoculation, from Victorian medical case histories to modern prescription pads. What do we know about humans and human bodies? How do we know what we know? And how do we talk or write about this knowledge and its application?

Pandemics and Plagues

MHUM-UA 102 Prerequisite: none. Required for the minor in medical humanities. Lecture. Offered every spring. Deer, Jordan, Klass. 4 points.

How have writers, scientists, artists, philosophers, musicians, performers, playwrights, and citizens responded to the outbreak of infectious disease across the centuries and around the world? What kinds of stories, narratives, and archives have shaped artistic, medical, and governmental responses? This course uses humanistic inquiry to engage with pandemics and plagues. Our case studies include bubonic plague, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, 1918 influenza, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. The course will engage a rich array of materials and approaches by focusing on themes such as historical plagues, plagues in literature, the impact of race, gender, and class on pandemic responses, war and pandemics, plus theatrical, film, and visual representations of disease.

Elective Courses

Students must take two courses (8 points) from this list of approved electives. Consult the departmental or program sections in this Bulletin for course descriptions, prerequisites, and availability. Elective courses may not be offered every semester, so students should check with the listed Department to see if the course is being offered in the semester they wish to take it.

ANTHROPOLOGY

Medical Anthropology

ANTH-UA 35 4 points. 

Global Biocultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Health

ANTH-UA 36 4 points. 

ART HISTORY

Urban Design and Health

ARTH-UA 682 4 points. 

COLLEGE CORE CURRICULUM

Texts and Ideas: Children and Childhood: Medical, Historical, and Cultural Perspectives

CORE-UA 400  4 points

Texts and Ideas: Contagion

CORE-UA 400  4 points.

Expressive Culture (Topics): Visual Arts and the Arts of Healing in the Italian Renaissance CORE-UA 9760 Offered at NYU Florence. 4 points.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Pandemic Reading

COLIT-UA 141 4 points.

ENGLISH

ShakesCare: Shakespeare and Medicine

ENGL-UA 415  4 points

Medical Humanities: Writing the Body, Writing the Mind

ENGL-UA 800 4 points.

HISTORY

Pandemics in World History

HIST-UA 79 4 points.

History of Medicine

HIST-UA 158 4 points.

History of Western Medicine

HIST-UA 202 4 points.

Plagues and Public Health in Renaissance Italy

HIST-UA 253 4 points.

JOURNALISM

The Beat: Separating Hope from Hype

JOUR-UA 201 4 points.

PHILOSOPHY

Medical Ethics

PHIL-UA 50 4 points.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Race and Reproduction

SCA-UA 158 4 points.

SOCIOLOGY

Sociology of Medicine

SOC-UA 414 4 points.