HUM 386 Health Humanities
How do works of visual, musical, and performative art help us understand issues of health and wellness, medical intervention, human suffering, and healing? This interdisciplinary course examines how artists and authors in the U.S. critically represent health, ethics, and wellness at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and ability. Students will engage with literature, visual arts, film, music, and/or performance as sites where health and medical practice are normalized, interrogated, critiqued, restructured, and investigated. By studying how BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and women artists provide critical perspectives on health and medicine, students will gain a broad grounding from which to articulate their own views on health ethics and the role of art in healing individuals and communities.
Prerequisites
4 Undergraduate credits
Effective August 18, 2025 to present
Meets graduation requirements for
Learning outcomes
General
- Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of the health humanities.
- Analyze works of art and literature as expressions of individual and human values within historical and social contexts.
- Respond critically to works of art and literature about health and medicine.
- Analyze artworks¿ critical investigations of race and racism.
- Apply their own ethical views when considering artist representations of health and medical issues.
- Analyze the ethical dimensions of legal, social, and scientific issues brought to light by works of medical humanities.
- Summarize the diversity of political motivations and interests of others in controlling cultural health narratives.
- Analyze critical perspectives on health ethics by BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and women artists.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum
Goal 6: The Humanities and Fine Arts
- Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.
- Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context.
- Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.
- Engage in the creative process or interpretive performance.
- Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.
Goal 9: Ethical and Civic Responsibility
- Examine, articulate, and apply their own ethical views.
- Understand and apply core concepts (e.g. politics, rights and obligations, justice, liberty) to specific issues.
- Analyze and reflect on the ethical dimensions of legal, social, and scientific issues.
- Recognize the diversity of political motivations and interests of others.
- Identify ways to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.