ATS1055 Introduction to health humanities

How can the humanities and social sciences enhance our understanding of medicine and health? This unit introduces students to an interdisciplinary analysis of the social context that  shapes the experience of illness and wellness.

In this unit, we interrogate the sociocultural assumptions about the nature of the human condition and the types of practices that constitute healthcare, including the historical and cultural specificity of biomedicine as a discipline. In order to understand how social factors (such as race, class, and gender) shape health outcomes and clinical experiences, we take as a case study the topic of pain, asking questions like: Whose pain is validated as worth medicating? What are the social meanings of pain – and what is its ethical significance? How are decisions about clinical intervention informed by patient background and the relationships between practitioners and patients? How have colonialism, racism, patriarchy and capitalism informed biomedical understandings of pain, and how do these understandings of pain impact patients (particularly those who are structurally marginalised?) How do patients and practitioners value non-biomedical interventions (such as meditation) that centre the agency of patients over practitioners? How have shifting notions of the mind-body relationship informed our understanding of pain?

We turn to the tools of the social sciences and humanities, to construct a panoramic view of the role of race, class, and gender in our social understanding of pain. Specific sub-topics may include reproductive health, Indigenous health and healing, eugenics and its relationship with contemporary biomedical practice, and palliative care.

At the end of this unit, you will have a solid foundation in the core conceptual frameworks and interdisciplinary tools needed to interrogate the relationship between health, knowledge and power.