The Medical Humanities minor equips students to take on the big questions such as: What does it mean to suffer? How should we care for the sick? What is the role of technology in caring for people? How have ideas about disease changed over time? How are diseases understood in different cultures? The minor also cultivates self-awareness in the sense of both the ability to empathize with other people while maintaining the clarity of our own limitations that comes with cultural humility.
Program Objectives
In addition to completing 2 required courses for the minor, students must take three additional elective courses from the course list below.
Required Courses (8 units)
Choose two from the following:
- ANT/STS 129 – Health and Medicine in Global Context
- CHI 114 – Women of Color Reproductive Health & Reproductive Politics in Global Perspective
- HIS 107 – Medicine’s History
- RST 152 – Justice, Equity, Privacy, Medical Humanities
- RST 153 – Religion and Medicine
- SOC 162 – Society, Culture, Health
- SOC 164 – Health policy and Politics
- STS 122 – Health and Medical Technologies
Elective Courses (12 units)
Choose three from the following:
- ANT 121/STS 121 – Special Topics in Medical Anthropology
- ANT 132 – Psychological Anthropology
- HIS 109 – Environmental Change
- HIS 112A – Topics in Pre-Modern Jewish History
- HIS 136: Scientific Revolution
- HIS 172 - American Environmental History
- NAS 123 – Native Foods and Farming of the Americas
- PHI 108 – Philosophy of Biological Sciences
- PHI 115 – Problems in Normative Ethics
- PHI 121 – Bioethics
- RST 120/STS 120 – Religion, Science, and Magic
- RST 150 – Advanced Religious Ethics
- RST 160 Introduction to Islamic Law
- STS 100 – Methods in Science, Technology, & Medicine Studies
- STS 101 – Data and Society
- STS 130B – History of Modern Biology
- STS 150 – Gender & Science