Office: 305 Pardee

Office Phone: (610) 330-5236

Email: detoral@lafayette.edu

This course may be used as an elective for the Healthcare and Society minor.

Course Description: Medicine is currently a global phenomenon—disease in one part of the world can affect people across the globe in a matter of days.  How does society seek to explain and cope with this circumstance?  One method is by telling stories that transform unpleasant realities into harmless fictions.  What messages do these stories deliver about world health and its consequences?

In this course, we will explore various types of stories about global medical concerns. One goal of this exploration will be the development of critical reading skills to allow students the opportunity to evaluate scientific and fictional texts and to make determinations about their relative reliability.

Images: The printer's symbol of Johann Froben is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Rod of Asclepius by CatherineMunro. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation