ATS2294 Death, dying and narrative

In the process of dying, we face the limits of modern biomedicine’s curative potential and come face to face with the fragility of human life. How does our understanding of life, death and illness challenge our understanding of biomedicine’s utility and power? How do patients and their carers describe their experiences of the end-of-life stage? What does it mean to live while dying? How might health care providers harness narrative medicine as a tool for enhancing their own compassion and professional longevity? Grounded in the methods of literary studies and performance studies, this cornerstone unit will introduce students to the discipline of narrative medicine, centering the patient experience with death and dying. 

Through narrative texts and performance, students will explore complex existential and ethical questions of illness and caregiving, death and dying. This unit seeks to make connections between mind and body, in both theory and practice. In addition to analytical and self-reflective tasks, students will explore medicine and health as a physical, embodied experience. Through this intellectual and physical process, students will develop an understanding of the principles, concepts and practices that underpin narrative medicine: intersubjectivity, philosophies of embodiment, close reading and deep listening, creativity, storytelling and relationality.