MA Medical and Health Humanities

Birkbeck, University of London

Course Overview

Our MA Medical and Health Humanities offers you the chance to explore human health through the richly faceted lenses of culture and history, covering topics including infectious disease, diet and exercise, disability, and mental health and wellbeing.

Why choose this course?

• This course draws together the diverse experience and interests of students and staff, working across different disciplines, different historical periods and different geographical regions, to offer an interdisciplinary approach to the fascinating, complex relationship between medicine and the humanities.
• It is ideal if you are interested in, or working within, health studies and wish to deepen your understanding of how patients and practitioners interact and how these narratives are negotiated in contemporary culture, theory and artistic practice.
• It gives you the chance to consider further how scientific and technological advances are constantly pushing the bounds of medical possibility. You will explore the role played by the humanities, and how the practice of medicine represented in art, literature, film and other media determines how we understand and experience our own bodies and the realities of sickness and health.

What you will learn

On this MA Medical and Health Humanities you will explore the timely and urgent matters facing people, patients, stakeholders, practitioners and artists as they address issues including identity, gender, sexuality, autonomy, rights, equality and diversity in the broad field of medicine.

You will also consider the development of clinical practices and institutions, the formation of medical expertise and authority, and the role of medical ethics and law.