Undergraduate Course: Medicine in Literature 2: Medical Ethics in Literature (ENLI10354)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course examines the representation of medical ethics in twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. It particularly focuses on the relationship between this development and other theoretical discourses of embodiment, the ethical dilemmas encountered by doctors and medical professionals and the representation of illness and abnormality in literature, through the lens of various theories of healing and care and posthumanist ethics. It is not merely an exercise in mapping various ethical debates. Taking in a small annual number of medical students, it allows English Literature and Medical students, alike, to view the reading of literature from multiple perspectives, and to examine the ways in which discourses of embodiment and ethical positions change according to shifting political, social and cultural contexts. It will appeal to students who have a particular interest in discourses of embodiment and ethics and the intersection between medicine, science and literature in general. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2014/15 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 30 |
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Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Class Delivery Information |
1 hour(s) per week for 10 week(s): attendance at autonomous learning group at time to be arranged. |
| Course Start Date |
12/01/2015 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
75 %,
Coursework
25 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| In addition to the skills training common to all English Literature Honours courses (essay-writing, independent reading, group discussion, oral presentation, small-group autonomous learning) this course will introduce students to a wide range of medical ethical issues as these have been represented and debated in literary texts from the nineteenth century to the present day. |
Assessment Information
One 2,500 word coursework essay (25%).
Final assessment will consist of an examination essay of 3,000 words for both intercalated BA students and English Literature students (75%).
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Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Seminar Schedule
1. Course introduction: Thinking through the experience of illness
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1915); extracts from Arthur Frank, The Wounded Storyteller (1997), Rita Charon, Narrative Medicine (2006), British Medical Association Ethics Department, Medical Ethics Today (2004).
2. The Role of the Doctor
Albert Camus, The Plague (1947).
3. The Ethics of Care
Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo¿s Nest (1962); extract from Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1964).
4. Patient Politics
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward (1967).
5. Surgical Conditioning
Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve (1977); extracts from Helene Cixous, ¿The Laugh of the Medusa¿ (1976), Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990), Monique Wittig, ¿One Is Not Born a Woman¿ (1992).
6. INNOVATIVE LEARNING WEEK
7. The Moral Machine
Alasdair Gray, Poor Things (1992).
8. Law and Ethics
Edna O¿Brien, Down by the River (1996).
9. ESSAY WRITING WEEK
10. Gendered Bodies
Jackie Kay, Trumpet (1998); Extract from Judith Halberstam, In A Queer Time and Place (2004).
11. Modification
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003); Julian Savulescu, ¿Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings¿ (2007).
12. Cloning
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let me Go (2005).
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Neil Badmington (ed), Posthumanism (2000)
Rosi Braidotti, Transpositions (2006)
Howard Brody, Stories of Sickness (2003)
Rita Charon, Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness (2006)
Mary K. Deshazer, Fractured Borders: Reading Women's Cancer Literature (2005)
Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (1963) Michel Foucault,
Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1964)
Arthur Frank, At the Will of the Body (1991)
Arthur Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics (1997)
Yasmin Gunaratnam and David Oliviere, Narrative and Stories in Health Care: Illness, Dying, and Bereavement (2009)
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999)
Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991)
Robert Kastenbaum, The Psychology of Death (1992)
A. F. Kleinman, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition (1988)
James J. Sheehan and Morton Sosna (eds), The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines (1991)
Bonnie Steinbock, The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics (2007)
Cary Wolfe, What is Posthumanism? (2009)
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Katherine Inglis
Tel: (0131 6)50 3617
Email: K.Inglis@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms June Haigh
Tel: (0131 6)50 3620
Email: j.haigh@ed.ac.uk |
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