Course summary

Medicine is one of the great human activities. The changes that medicine has undergone, and the problems and opportunities it raises, should be of interest to everyone. In this MA programme, you are introduced to many questions asked about medicine from within the humanities. For example, you have the opportunity to examine the history of Western medicine and to consider how medical practice is presented in, and shaped by, literature and the arts. You have the chance to reflect on what is involved in classifying something as a disease or an abnormal mental state, and to explore various ethical and legal problems that arise within medicine. You also learn about the history of the medical humanities as a field and the debates that have surrounded its identity and role. As an interdisciplinary programme, the MA is taught by scholars from many different disciplines across the University, including the Schools of English, Arts, History and Law and the Departments of Philosophy, Classical & Archaeological Studies, Comparative Literature and Religious Studies. You take four modules across the autumn and spring terms, including one core module and from a variety of optional modules, before undertaking a supervised 12,000-word dissertation over the summer. The programme is aimed primarily at people with a humanities background, but we also welcome healthcare practitioners or those with medical backgrounds who are interested in the growing field of the medical humanities.