Medical Humanities Course Descriptions
Scroll down to read descriptions of the medical humanities courses offered at Carthage, or click on these links for additional resources:
Biology and Geography of Nicaragua (SCI)(GH)(SE)(IP)
BIO/GEO 675 / 4 credits
This course provides a unique opportunity for students to experience either clinical work or work on water and other environmental projects. Both aspects provide students first-hand knowledge of the rural volcanic island of Ometepe, Nicaragua.
Health Communication (SI)(IDP)
CDM 2100 / 4 credits
The primary purpose of this course is to investigate the phenomena of communication, theoretically and practically, as it occurs in health care contexts. Private and public messages, internal and external to health institutions, will be examined to explore how those messages affect health care decisions and outcomes. Health communication includes many diverse cultures and communities of practice, including patient provider communication, marketing and public health campaigns, use of technology in health care, and communication within and across allied fields.
Gender Communication (CL)(SI)(DIV)
CDM 2400/WMG 200R / 4 credits
In-depth study of interaction within and between groups with regard to gender, sex, and sexuality. Topics include the continua of gender and sexuality, gender development, cultural roles and expectations, verbal and nonverbal communication, rhetoric of gender/ sex-based social movements, power and violence, and gendered communication in education, close relationships, organizations, and media.
Intercultural Communication (CL)(ITL)
CDM 3600 / 4 credits
Exploration of the various theories, opportunities, and problems related to communication by individuals within and across different cultural groups.
Prerequisite: CDM 1150 or consent of instructor
Introduction to Literary Studies: Literature, Illness, Medicine (HUM)(CL)
ENG 1160 / 4 credits
This course will examine how literature can help us explain, understand, document, and imagine experiences with illness and medicine. Through readings from a rotating selection of genres and authors, students will also consider how literature can act as a form of memory and as a form of consolation. Texts studied may include the poet William Carlos Williams’s fictionalized chronicles of his life as a practicing physician, The Doctor Stories, or works by the sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom and the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro that explore some of the persistent and potential inequities experienced by patients seeking treatment. Throughout the course, students will hone their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills while asking big questions about mortality, suffering, healing, and care.
Literature of Diversity (HUM)(CL)(DIV)
ENG 3090 / 4 credits
Each offering in this rotating selection of courses explores a single diverse ethnic literature, such as African-American, Asian- American, Hispanic-American, and Native American. While content will vary according to the discretion of the instructor, this group of courses is united by a common desire to read diverse literature according to its own heritage double-voice as it is further complicated by issues of gender and class. To this end, a course in Native American literature, for example, might begin with a study of the creation myths in the oral tradition, then move to historical, anthropological, autobiographical, and fictional accounts of the Native American experience as the two (often conflicting) voices of Native American and American describe it.
Literature and Gender (HUM)(CL)(DIV)
ENG 3100 / 4 credits
In this course the literature chosen for study will reflect issues relevant to considerations of gender. In some instances, works will be chosen in order to explore the idea of how literature portrays what it means to be gendered. In other instances, literature will be chosen in order to explore how writers of one gender portray characters of the opposite gender. In some instances the choice of literature will be based on extending awareness of writers who, because of their gender, have not historically been included within the canon. The historical and social contexts of these works will be an integral part of the conversation within the course.
Bio-Medical Ethics
PHL 1400 / 4 credits
This course will help students learn to reason philosophically about bio-medical ethics. Relevant issues might include: end of life care, euthanasia, abortion, conflicts of interest in biomedical research, genetic engineering, informed consent, confidentiality, cultural and economic issues.
Women of Africa (ITL)(SI)
POL/WMG 3030 / 4 credits
The study of the countries in Africa has frequently focused on public events: colonialism, political change, war, government actions, and the formal economy. In recent years, researchers have begun to explore in more depth how women’s lives are impacted by these events, and how women in Africa are active participants in the various sectors of their societies. This course will look at life in various African countries through the eyes of women and will examine how women of Africa actively engage in and are affected by political, cultural, and economic events both domestically and internationally. Themes will include human rights issues of women, the impact of modernity and tradition on women’s lives, images of appropriate female behavior, economic hardship and survival techniques, cultural issues surrounding marriage and motherhood, and women’s participation in the public spheres of their countries.
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or instructor consent
Global Poverty (ITL)(SI)
POL 3450/WMG 3500 / 4 credits
While the focus of this course will be theoretical, the class will begin by introducing some general background information on global stratification. We will examine the geography of stratification (i.e., which countries are rich, which countries are poor, etc.). The basic demographics of poverty will also be explored. Particular attention will be paid to infant mortality rates, life expectancy rates, health care quality and access, education, the status of women, and the availability of foreign and domestic assistance. Finally, we will analyze various concepts of poverty, measures of poverty, and different kinds of stratification systems.
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or instructor consent
Faith, Love, and Ethics (REL)(DIV)(CL)
REL 2200 / 4 credits
Students will concentrate on the nature and bases of ethics and morality as informed by the Bible, Christian theology, and tradition. Special attention will be given to specific issues such as human sexuality, divorce, war and peace, personal and corporate responsibility, poverty, and world hunger.
Issues of Living and Dying (REL)(SI)(IDP)(WEL)
REL 2300 / 4 credits
Students will concentrate on concepts and issues related to illness, dying, death, and grief. Special attention will be given to issues such as definitions of death, attitudes toward death, rights and wishes of the dying, forms of euthanasia, views of suffering and death, funeral packages, and the grief process. A particular effort will be made to enable students to see the issues in the light of Christian understanding and to help students arrive at their own positions.
Religion and Society (REL)(SI)
REL 3350 / 4 credits
Students will examine various perspectives on the relationship between religion and society. This study will encourage students to explore such diverse themes as the relationship of religion and the state, national, and global economic structures; ethics; countercultural religious movements; and the religious principles that may undergird a social matrix. Students will write a series of analytical essays, applying some of the religious principles encountered to the analysis of political, social, or economic issues.
Social Problems (SOC)
SOC 2010 / 4 credits
Studies the social structural bases of current social problems with a particular focus on the inequities of socioeconomic condition, race, and gender. Students develop transnational comparisons concerning such areas of social life as employment, the workplace, health care, energy use, environmental imbalances, and crime. Analyzes policies designed to remedy specific problems.
Cultural Anthropology
SOC 2020 / 4 credits
This course provides an introductory exploration of anthropological approaches to society, culture, language, and history. Students are given the opportunity to consider the intellectual and ethical challenges that confront anthropologists in making sense of human difference, experience, and complexity.
Race and Racisms (DIV)
SOC 2530 / 4 credits
Examines the sociological, economic, and psychological nature of the relationships between racial and ethnic groups with differential access to political and economic power. Focus is on the United States, with some discussion of racism, cultural discrimination, and sexism in other parts of the world.
Prerequisite: SOC 1000 or CRJ 1000
Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in a Diverse World (SOC)(DIV)
SOC 2770 / 4 credits
This course examines the sociological perspectives of sex, gender, and sexuality, while incorporating interdisciplinary texts when necessary. The course will locate sex, gender, and sexuality within contemporary sociohistorical context; examine practices and relationships of power; and analyze both institutional and interpersonal forms of inequality based on sex, gender, and sexuality.
Prerequisite: SOC 1000 or WMG 1100
Trauma Across Social Contexts (DIV)(SI)(WEL)
SWK 2700 / 4 credits
Why are so many community leaders talking about trauma? Research is growing on the impact of traumatic stress on the brain, on communities, and on social institutions. This course is intended to broadly cover the implications of trauma across social contexts so that cross-disciplinary learners can approach their clients, patients, students, etc. in a trauma-informed manner.
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies (DIV)
WMG 1100 / 4 credits
This course will begin by drawing a distinction between biology (the body) and current theories of gender (culture and biology) and identity formation. The course concentrates on Western interpretations of “woman” and “man” as cultural symbols using a variety of disciplinary approaches.
Women’s and Gender Studies Theory (DIV)(SI)
WMG 3110 / 4 credits
This is a reading seminar that will investigate the writings of feminist theorists as well as the critical questions raised by feminism pertinent to the academic disciplines. “Sexes (gender), difference between the sexes, man, woman, race, black, white, nature are at the core of [the straight minds’] set of parameters. They have shaped our concepts, our laws, our institutions, our history, and our cultures. To reexamine the parameters on which universal thought is founded requires a reevaluation of all the basic tools of analysis, including dialectics. Not in order to discard it, but to make it more effective” (Monique Wittig). This course will examine the feminist critique of culture as a way of examining our philosophical heritage and as a way of understanding the relationship of culture to academic inquiry.
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing or instructor consent