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A Cultural History of Medicine in German Literature

I: Introduction - Representing Illness and Health

1a: Intro: Course outline/Syllabus - Med. Humanities

1b: Differing Perspectives: Ideology in medicine - science & art.
 

II: Folk Traditions and Early Medical Practice

2a: Classical and Germanic Folk Traditions and Practices

2b: Medieval Medicine and Early Pharmaceutics 

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III: Early Modern Social Anxiety and Medical Practice

3a: Morality and Anxiety in the Reformation - The Charlatan

3b: European Epidemic - Reactions to the Bubonic Plague

 
IV: Moral Considerations and Medical Practice

4a: Morality and Medicine
4b: Significance and Trajectory of Early Medical Practice; Discussion & Review

 

V: Early Mental Health Care and Modernity

5a: The Invention of Psychiatry - Reil, Goethe and the First Journal of Psychology

5b: Popular Mania and Madness: “Lesewut”, Masturbation and other Health Scares

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VI: Representations of Mental Illness

6a: Socioeconomic Factors of Illness: The Scandal of Goethe and Lenz

6b: Schizophrenia: Emil Kraepelin and ‘dementia praecox’ - Diagnostic History

 

VII: Establishing Care for Mental Illness

7a: Treatment: Early Institutions and Theories - Wundt & Fechner

7b: Self-care and Self-Expression. Review and Discussion of Major Topics.

 

VIII:   National Programs and Public Health

8a: Socialized Medicine: The Health Insurance Bill of 1883 - The Public Option

8b: Social Taboo: Sex Education and Reproductive Rights - Biopolitics I

 

IX:   Fighting Conspiracies and Paradigm Shifts in Medicine

9a: Vaccination Programs and Tuberculosis - Germ Theory

9b: The Sanitorium and Alternative Medicine - Natural Medicine

 

X:   Racism and Harm in Health Care

10a: Eugenics: Pseudoscience and Racism - Biopolitics II

10b: Nazi Doctors: The Hippocratic Oath; Review and Discussion

 
XI:  Insights into Illness

11a: Body Dysmorphia and Expressionist Terror

11b: Hysteria and Stream of Consciousness 

 
XII:  Narrative and Palliative Treatment 

12a: Representations of Cancer and the Heroic Journey

12b: Representations of HIV and Activism

 
XIII:  Hierarchies of Health Care Access

13a: Ethics and Economics: Organ Harvesting and the Dialectics of Science Fiction

13b: Choosing to End Life:  Assisted Suicide and the Metaconscious Protagonist

 

XIV: Conclusion

14a: The Challenge of Technology - The Future of Healthcare and the Humanities

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