Health Humanities Minor
The health humanities is an interdisciplinary approach to the cultural, historical and ethical dimensions of health and medicine. Courses in the health humanities examine health and illness as concepts that are intimately connected to human bodies, human experiences and human cultures. Health contains and exceeds the human, and so humanities disciplines provide an expansive and interdisciplinary perspective on what it means to be healthy, ill, flourishing, languishing, living and dying. To explore health and illness in this framing is to engage in a wide spectrum of cultural literacies that are the hallmarks of a liberal arts education.
Bucknell's health humanities minor is designed for students from all three colleges and complements their studies in any other discipline. Students will explore the hidden, abandoned or neglected connections between health and its cultural, historical and environmental contexts. The courses of the minor prioritize textual and visual analysis, historical literacy, ethical reasoning, archival research, ethnography, as well as advanced levels of written and oral communication. In an age marked by historic global pandemics, health and illness remain urgent and contested categories requiring increasingly nuanced analysis and creative engagement. Students pursuing the health humanities minor will be uniquely prepared for a range of careers within and beyond health care.
Requirements of the Minor
The health humanities minor consists of five courses: HLTH 100 Intro to Health Humanities, one course from each of the three core categories, and one additional course at the 300 level from any core category. Students may request that credit from courses not listed here be counted toward the minor by contacting the director of the health humanities program.
| HLTH 100 | Intro to Health Humanities | 1 |
| Ethical and Philosophical Dimensions of Health | 1 | |
| Philosophy of Science | ||
| Philosophy of Biology | ||
| Bioethics | ||
| Environmental Ethics | ||
| Bioethics: Issues in Ethics, Medicine, and the Life Sciences | ||
| Historical Engagements in Health and Medicine | 1 | |
| Art, Science, and Magic in the Medieval World | ||
| Renaissance Literature, 1485-1660 (only when titled Reading the Renaissance Body, taught by Emily Loney) | ||
| Special Topics (only when titled Plague, Contagion, and Illness, taught by Emily Loney) | ||
| Seminar in Renaissance Literature (only when titled Performing Disability in Early Modern Literature, taught by Emily Loney) | ||
| Seminar in Special Topics (only when titled Narrating Disability, taught by Emily Loney) | ||
| Introduction to the History of Medicine | ||
| Histories of Environmental Health and Justice | ||
| North American Environmental History | ||
| Health and Medicine in the 20th Century U.S. | ||
| Topics in the History of Science and Medicine | ||
| History of Science and Medicine | ||
| How to Be Alone: Religion, Solitude, and Loneliness | ||
| Yoga: Religion, History, Culture | ||
| Social Contexts and Inequalities of Health | 1 | |
| Medical Anthropology | ||
| Culture and Madness | ||
| Mind, Madness and Medicine | ||
| Global Health | ||
| Race, Sports and Politics | ||
| Special Topics in American Literature (only when titled Fiction and Reproductive Justice, taught by Chase Gregory) | ||
| Environmental Health & Climate | ||
| Gender, Environment & Health | ||
| Digesting Divinity: Religion, Food and Diet | ||
| Sociology of Health and Medicine | ||
| Gender, Race and Health | ||
| Reproductive Justice & Health | ||
| One 300-Level Course from Any Core Area | 1 | |
Courses
HLTH 100. Intro to Health Humanities. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course introduces students to the social, historical, environmental and ethical dimensions of health and medicine. It will prepare students to engage with health and illness as products of cultural processes by educating them in core concepts, historical case studies and research methods essential to the humanities.
Faculty
Coordinator: John Penniman