Literature & Medicine (381-0-20)
Topic
Underlying Conditions: Race, Health, Medicine
Instructors
Michelle Nancy Huang
847/491-6837
University 226
Office Hours: T 2pm - 3pm; W 2pm - 3pm
Meeting Info
Harris Hall L28: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Race is socially constructed—but how is it medically constructed? This seminar surveys Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous American literary and cultural production to question how "healthy" bodies in the United States are constituted, and in turn, what these racialized processes reveal about the essential role of race in producing a body politic. Concomitantly, we will also read scholarship from ethnic studies that charts racialized comorbidities, pre-existing conditions, and environmental racism, as well as work that expands our understanding of race's imbrications with medical paradigms such as eugenics, genetics, informed consent, reproductive rights, disability, mental illness, and, of course, pandemics.
In addition to excavating the long histories and present problems surrounding medical racism, another goal of this course is tracking the medicalization of race itself. As such, we will challenge commonly held perceptions of bodies, pain, ability, and the constitution of equitable futures. We will also supplement our reading with guest lectures from medical professionals working at the intersection of race and medicine. Students will take away from the class a deeper grasp of the discourse surrounding race and medicine, as well as how to deploy this knowledge in their critical interpretations of cultural production. Some conceptual questions for consideration include the following: how do texts by writers of color challenge normative assessments of what constitutes health and wellness? How do we ethically consider race and medicine without resorting to postracial idealism? And to what extent can creative experiments generated in art and literature re-envision the medicalized terms under which race is understood?
Teaching Method
Seminar-based discussions.
Evaluation Method
Graded participation; in-class presentation; regular reading responses; two short essays; and one longer essay.
Class Materials (Required)
Please verify before purchasing. Assigned primary texts will likely include pieces such as Helena María Viramontes's Under the Feet of Jesus, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's Noopiming, Chang-rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea, Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, Oscar Cásares's Brownsville, Rafael Campo's What the Body Told, Susan Power's The Grass Dancer, Roxane Gay's Hunger, Rachel Khong's Goodbye, Vitamin, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, I Am Legend, Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals, Reservoir Dogs, Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
Texts will be available at: Primary texts will be available at the Norris Bookstore and on reserve in the library. Other texts will be available on Canvas.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area