Medicine and American Lit.

[Riotbeard]

Anybody have any good suggestion for short stories that could be assigned in a cultural history of american medicine class? Disease, doctors or nurses could be central themes. I plan on assigning Poe's mask of the red death, Hawthorne's the birthmark, and Alcott's my contraband. I also plan on assigning the episode "The Body" from Buffy at the end of the course and/or 28 days later or children of men. Any other thoughts would be great.

[justkeepswimming]

I don't know about a collection of short stories, but one short story worth checking out would be Raymond Carver's "The Cathedral."

[asleepawake]

You might consider Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," though it's really a novella so it may not be what you're looking for. Also, Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants" and David Foster Wallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children" would be good.

Edit: "Cultural history of American medicine." Forget Tolstoy.

Edited December 3, 2012 by asleepawake

[ProfLorax]

What a fun class! And kudos to the inclusion of "The Body." Just thinking about that episode makes me choke up a bit (especially Anya's monologue).

I did my MA thesis on abortion in literature and television, so I have an oddly extensive knowledge about the cultural history of abortion. If you are interested in discussing that specific medical procedure, some literary texts to look at would be "the mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks, Zami by Audre Lorde, "Brass Furnace Going Out: Song, After an Abortion" by Diane diPrima, and Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. You can find abortion on television on Maude, Friday Night Lights, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and a 1973 episode of All My Children.

(Side note: I wonder how many other PhD in English applicants mentioned abortion several times in their SoP?)

[asleepawake]

You can find abortion on television on . . . Degrassi: The Next Generation

(Side note: I wonder how many other PhD in English applicants mentioned abortion several times in their SoP?)

Yes! This!

Watching Manny's abortion episode circa 2004 on the internet (it was at the time not airing in the US) played a sizable role in my descent into feminism... I did not, however, mention this in my SOP... it's not too late, though!

Edited December 3, 2012 by asleepawake

[ProfLorax]

Yes! This!

Watching Manny's abortion episode circa 2004 on the internet (it was at the time not airing in the US) played a sizable role in my descent into feminism... I did not, however, mention this in my SOP... it's not too late, though!

This comment made me so happy. I devoted an entire chapter of my thesis to this episode and its censorship from US airwaves!

[asleepawake]

I want to read your thesis instead of finishing my applications!

[Datatape]

"The Yellow Wallpaper."

[ohgoodness]

You could assign a chapter from Delilo's "White Noise". It would obviously be more patient-oriented but still it's a good read.

Although non-fiction you could do "the spirit catches you and you fall down" regarding culture clashes in medicine.

[sebastiansteddy]

If you weren't only looking for short stories, I would recommend Steve Tomasula's VAS: an Opera in Flatland. Super cool text that looks at medical procedures (specifically vasectomies, though also abortions and cosmetic surgery) in the context of the discourse on genetics/eugenics. It is figuring heavily into my thesis.

[mostlytoasty]

You could do some case studies from Oliver Sacks (they read like short stories). A memoir that comes to mind is also Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face (deals with her diagnosis and treatment of ewing's sarcoma). Also some chapters from Andre Dubus (esp. "A Hemingway Story" which you could pair with Hemingway's "In Another Country") which talk about the futility of cures, phrased reductively. If you were going to assign some historical background text, Roy Porter's work is excellent and easy to digest, esp. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind--you'll find some good sections on American medicine there I think.

[Riotbeard]

These are great suggestions. I forgot about the Yellow Wallpaper. I was an English major in college... The reason why I am only asking for short stories (although short form literary nonfiction is also welcome) is all the long works I am assigning are history monographs, so I don't have space for full novels. If this helps here are the monographs I am assigning:

Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866

Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and embodied Social identity in Nineteenth-Century America

Jim Downs, Sick from Freedom: african-american illness and suffering during the civil war and reconstruction

Judith Walzer Leavitt, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health

Warwick Anderson, Colonial pathologies : American tropical medicine, race, and hygiene in the Philippines

Martin Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915

Susan Reverby- Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy

March Shell- Polio and its aftermath : the paralysis of culture

[GuateAmfeminist]

I know that this is not literature and this is a very new field - but new documents found in American and (more recently) through the Guatemalan National Police Archive show that the American (and Guatemalan) government conducted an unethical syphilis study between 1946 and 1948. This may be useful to compare to your Tuskegee Study (Susan Reverby also made this discovery).

[Riotbeard]

I was aware of that (One of my best friends in my program was a guatamalanist [spelling?]), but I had not even thought to use them! That sounds very interesting as paired with the reverby book, although fitting with the general depressing theme... Thanks!

[wreckofthehope]

Anybody have any good suggestion for short stories that could be assigned in a cultural history of american medicine class? Disease, doctors or nurses could be central themes. I plan on assigning Poe's mask of the red death, Hawthorne's the birthmark, and Alcott's my contraband. I also plan on assigning the episode "The Body" from Buffy at the end of the course and/or 28 days later or children of men. Any other thoughts would be great.

Both 28 Days Later and Children of Men are British films (the latter based on a British book)... would something like that recent movie Contagion be better? This sounds like such a cool class! Something that comes to mind is Charles Burn's Black Hole comics - they deal with a sexually transmitted disease that causes teenagers in a suburb/town to develop visible mutations.

Edited December 4, 2012 by wreckofthehope

[Riotbeard]

Yeah, I feel like a bit of a dolt now (I didn't even think about the fact that those movies are british). I didn't love contagion (although I didn't hate it or anything), so I probably wouldn't assign that even though from a pure content perspective it definitely fits. I have the same problem with the fact that I don't enjoy Angels in America. It's just my own personal taste... I was also thinking about Cronenberg's Rabid or Twelve Monkeys, but both may be too stylistically off-putting as to distract students from interpreting it. Walking Dead episodes are another option. Movie suggestions would also be welcomed

[lisajay]

although it's an american remake of a spanish film, there's always quarantine.

[wreckofthehope]

Yeah, I feel like a bit of a dolt now (I didn't even think about the fact that those movies are british). I didn't love contagion (although I didn't hate it or anything), so I probably wouldn't assign that even though from a pure content perspective it definitely fits. I have the same problem with the fact that I don't enjoy Angels in America. It's just my own personal taste... I was also thinking about Cronenberg's Rabid or Twelve Monkeys, but both may be too stylistically off-putting as to distract students from interpreting it. Walking Dead episodes are another option. Movie suggestions would also be welcomed

Yeah, Rabid would be great (but I know what you mean about the off-puttingness) - also, I guess it's Canadian, but (sorry Canadians) that doesn't seem as much of a stretch to me .

The Andromeda Strain, or Outbreak maybe too?

[wreckofthehope]

Yeah, I feel like a bit of a dolt now (I didn't even think about the fact that those movies are british).

I do this ALL the time, which is probably why I noticed it! I've seen profs do it, too, in American culture-based classes... it's some weird thing with film, it's filed as "American" in many people's brains it seems (especially action/SF film).

Edited December 7, 2012 by wreckofthehope

[Phil Sparrow]

_Philadelphia_ might be a useful film.

[DontHate]

"People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in the Peed Onk" by Lorrie Moore is an incredibly powerful short story about going through the healthcare system in order to treat a child with cancer. It's definitely one of my all-time favorites.