The Boundaries of Illness

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label Diverse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:01 history_edu Silviu Marinescu
For those studying and pursuing careers in medicine, public health, health and social policy and planning, as well as humanities disciplines, this course offers an invaluable insight into medicine from a new perspective - using literature, art, history, film and philosophy to explore concepts of illness, health and disease. Offering a unique opportunity to explore an emerging field as it develops, medical humanities is becoming central to both humanities research and healthcare.

That means students who can demonstrate an understanding of the subjective experience of health and illness, and the broader concepts defining health and disease, will achieve a distinct advantage academically and professionally.Introducing students to the medical humanities, this course will allow you to understand the medical humanities as a discipline and how it can be used in relation to healthcare, engage with the philosophical concepts behind health and disease, and develop a foundation understanding of the broad philosophical and cultural forces underpinning psychiatry. You'll gain an important basic knowledge of the broad historical background behind modern medicine through its representations in art, literature and film.

The course is taught by researchers who are at the forefront of their field, and King's expertise in the medical humanities means that this is a subject which is not available at this level anywhere else in the UK.

The course will introduce you to the medical humanities and will explore the following topics:

- The medical humanities as a discipline, and how it can be used in relation to healthcare;

- The philosophical concepts behind health and disease;

- The broad philosophical and cultural forces underpinning psychiatry;

- The broad historical background behind modern medicine through its representations in art, literature and film.



The course will include visits to the Hunterian museum, the Gordon museum, the Freud museum, the Florence Nightingale museum and the Wellcome Collection. These are all important sites for the cultural and historical background to the medical humanities, and will be integrated into the learning sessions and seminars.

Period
01-07-2013 - 19-07-2013 (3 weeks)

Target group
This course will be of interest to those intending to pursue further study or a career in medicine, public health, health and social policy and planning, or in humanities disciplines.

Course aim
The course will give you a good understanding of an emerging discipline, together with the tools to tackle interdisciplinary work, both of which are becoming core to academic study.You will have acquired both subject-specific knowledge and broader transferable skills from the course, from working across and between traditional subject boundaries.By the end of the course, you will understand the relationship between medicine and the humanities, and will appreciate the nature of an interdisciplinary field of enquiry.

Credits
7.5 ECTS credits

Many of our students get credit for the summer courses taken at Kings. You should approach your home university before applying to find out whether they accept our courses for credit. We would recommend a three-week course to be equivalent 4 US credits or 7.5 ECTS, for instance.

Course fee
GBP 1350: tuition fee only

Course leader
Our Summer School tutors are experts in their fields who often do ground-breaking research of their own and love what they do. Teaching in small and medium-sized groups, they are engaging educators who enjoy working with their students, awakening their in

King's College London
Address: Strand, London
Postal code: WC2R 2LS
City: London
Country: United Kingdom
Website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/summerschool
E-mail: summerschool@kcl.ac.uk
Phone: +44 20 7848 1533