Medicine, Literature, and Culture Minor

The interdisciplinary honors minor in medicine, literature, and culture was developed in collaboration with Honors Carolina and the Department of Social Medicine in the UNC School of Medicine. It encourages students to explore the cultural and historical dimensions of medical practice by viewing the practice of medicine not simply as an application of chemical and biological analyses of and interventions in the functioning of the human body but also as a cultural practice embedded in changing ideas of disease, health, doctors, patients, medical institutions, and ethics. The minor is available to students accepted into Honors Carolina and to any undergraduate student who has achieved and maintains a grade point average of 3.00 or better.

Requirements

In addition to the program requirements listed below, students must:

  • take at least nine hours of their minor "core" requirements at UNC–Chapel Hill
  • earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the minor core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for minor or specific courses.

For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.

Core Requirements
Five courses representing at least three different subject codes:15
IDEAs in Action General Education logo Medicine, Literature, and Culture
Four additional courses in at least two additional subject codes
Total Hours15

Options for additional courses include, but are not limited to, the following courses:

AAAD 300IDEAs in Action General Education logo Cultures of Health and Healing in Africa3
AAAD 387IDEAs in Action General Education logo HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Diaspora3
ANTH 147IDEAs in Action General Education logo Comparative Healing Systems3
ANTH 270IDEAs in Action General Education logo Living Medicine3
ANTH 272/ENGL 264IDEAs in Action General Education logo Healing in Ethnography and Literature3
ANTH 319IDEAs in Action General Education logo Global Health3
ANTH 442/WGST 440Health and Gender after Socialism3
ANTH/WGST 443IDEAs in Action General Education logo Cultures and Politics of Reproduction3
ANTH 444Medicine, Politics, and Justice3
ANTH 448IDEAs in Action General Education logo Health and Medicine in the American South3
ANTH/FOLK 470Medicine and Anthropology3
ANTH/FOLK 473Anthropology of the Body and the Subject3
ANTH 474The Anthropology of Disability3
CMPL 383Literature and Medicine H3
ENGL 163IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introduction to Health Humanities3
ENGL 264IDEAs in Action General Education logo Healing in Ethnography and Literature3
ENGL 266IDEAs in Action General Education logo Science and Literature H3
ENGL 269IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introduction to Disability Studies3
ENGL 370IDEAs in Action General Education logo Race, Health, and Narrative H3
ENGL 610IDEAs in Action General Education logo Practicum in Health Humanities3
ENGL 611IDEAs in Action General Education logo Narrative, Literature, and Medicine: Advanced Interdisciplinary Seminar3
GEOG 222Health and Medical Geography3
GLBL 483IDEAs in Action General Education logo Comparative Health Systems H3
HIST 329An Introduction to the History of Medicine H3
HNRS 337Narrative and Medicine3
HNRS 362NHS Scotland - Policies, Problems, and Innovative Solutions3
HNRS 650Topics in Medicine and the Humanities1-6
MEJO 560Environmental and Science Journalism H3
PHIL 165IDEAs in Action General Education logo Bioethics H3
PLCY 361Health Policy in the United States3
PLCY/HPM 565Global Health Law & Policy3
PLCY 570/HPM 571Global Health and Human Rights3
RELI 220IDEAs in Action General Education logo Religion and Medicine H3
RELI 665/WGST 664Body and Suffering in Christian Mysticism3
SOCI 180IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introduction to Global Population Health3
SOCI 422IDEAs in Action General Education logo Sociology of Mental Health and Illness3
SOCI 431Aging3
SOCI 469Health and Society3
WGST 330IDEAs in Action General Education logo Women's Health Activism in Twentieth Century America3
H

Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Additional courses can be applied to the requirements for this minor with the approval of the advisor for the minor.

At least three courses used to fulfill requirements for the minor must be counted exclusively in the minor and cannot be double-counted with a major or second minor. All courses must be taken for a standard letter grade, with the exception of one course (three to four credit hours) of By-Examination (BE) credit.

See the program page here for special opportunities.

Department of English and Comparative Literature

Visit Program Website

Greenlaw Hall, CB# 3520

(919) 962-5481

Program Director

Kym Weed-Buzinski

kweed@email.unc.edu

Chair

Marsha Collins

ECL Undergraduate Advisor

Hilary Lithgow

lithgow@email.unc.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Joseph Fletcher

jafletch@email.unc.edu