Courses
Medical Humanities and Health Studies
- MHHS-M 301 Perspectives on Health, Disease, and Healing (3 cr.) The course utilizes the perspectives of the humanities and social science disciplines to provide students with a broader understanding of the many facets of health and disease, suffering and dying, as well as art and science of healing. PUL=3
- MHHS-M 492 Topics in Medical Humanities and Health Studies (1-3 cr.) Intensive study and analysis of selected issues and problems in Medical Humanities and Health Studies. Topics will ordinarily cut across fields and disciplines. May be repeated once for credit on a different topic. PUL=4
- MHHS-M 495 Independent Project/Seminar in Medical Humanities and Health Studies (3 cr.) A seminar or research project on a subject in Medical Humanities and Health Studies. Requires a minimum of 9 credit hours in the minor. PUL=4
- MHHS-M 498 Readings in Medical Humanities and Health Studies (1-3 cr.) Individual readings and research. May be repeated once for credit on a different subject.
- MHHS-M 504 Introduction to Research Ethics (1-3 cr.)
Introduction to the basic concepts of research ethics. The course covers the historical development of concern with ethics in science as well as practical information needed by students working in science today. Format is lecture and discussion.
- MHHS-M 592 Graduate Topics in Medical Humanities (3 cr.)
Study of topics in Medical Humanities. May be repeated once for credit on a different topic.
- MHHS-M 598 Graduate Readings in Medical Humanities (1-3 cr.)
Focused readings on selected topics in medical humanities by arrangement with the instructor. Permission of the Program Director required.
- MHHS-M 420 The Culture of Mental Illness: Representations of Mental Illness in Literature and Film (3 cr.) This course will consider how mental illness is represented in literature and film by exploring the following: Is there a relationship between the way we understand and perceive mental illness, and the way it is portrayed through pop culture? Have literary and film portrayals of mental illness aided our construction of how we think about mental illness today? How has our understanding of mental illness changed in the last century? We will consider the ways certain understandings of mental illness are constructed, represented and proliferated throughout culture. What are the different representational strategies, in particular the representation of the therapeutic encounter between doctor and patient? PUL=2
- MHHS-M 501 Medical Humanities & The Illness Experience: Exploring the Human Condition (3 cr.)
This course will proceed as an in-depth scrutiny of the philosophy and empiricism of medical science. The nature of Medical Humanities will be explored by debating issues affecting the human condition in general, and the illness experience in particular. These issues include evolutionary biology and the beginning of life; questions of artificial life and intelligence; the nature of consciousness; genetics and cloning; the pain of the nation over abortion and euthanasia; alternative and experimental medical techniques; organ donation and transplantation; redefining mental health; and the art and science involved in caring for the patient.
- MHHS-M 520 The Culture of Mental Illness (3 cr.)
This course explores the ways in which our understanding of mental illness is constructed, represented, and proliferated throughout our culture, by examining text and film. We will consider how we as individuals and as a society are affected by different representations of mental illness, and how this translates into everyday interaction with others.
- MHHS-M 595 Clinical Practicum in Medical Humanities (3 cr.)
The Clinical Practicum will allow students the opportunity to not only gain a better understanding of clinical medicine, but also develop a better understanding of how the humanities can inform and enrich the practice of medicine in particular and healthcare in general. The clinical experience is individualized based on the students' interests. Students will be provided a list of clinical opportunities from which they may design their practicum experience with guidance from the director, Emily Beckman.
- MHHS-M 201 Introduction to Medical Humanities and Health Studies (3 cr.) The proposed new course is a multi- and inter-disciplinary survey course in Medical Humanities & Health Studies with a focus on the contributions of different humanities and social science disciplines to the knowledge base of Western health care and medicine. A very introductory exposure to approximately seven to nine disciplinary perspectives on medicine and health care will be presented by MHHS faculty and guest lecturers representing their respective fields. A team of two faculty members from the MHHS Program will teach and coordinate the course content along comparative themes. They will review the content of the discipline-specific guest lectures in discussions along the lines of health care topics to illuminate the interplay of differing perspectives in understanding health care, and highlight the key characteristics of the traditional liberal arts disciplines represented [please see the attached sample syllabus]. The course will initially be offered twice during the academic year, beginning with Spring semester 2011. One section per semester will be taught with an enrollment cap of 45 students per section (90 per academic year). It is hoped that as the course becomes better known across the IUPUI campus, it will draw additional students from other schools, increasing enrollments not only for the course, but for related upper division liberal arts courses as well. (PUL 3, 2, 1A)