This course will examine the close relationship between cultural plurality and health. Students will explore how attitudes toward health and understandings of illness are influenced and understood by different cultures. Although the course will be grounded in literary texts, it will be supplemented by material from a range of other disciplines. Students will engage issues as varied as the ethics of caring for and being cared by culturally diverse people, non-Western forms of care including Indigenous care, differing perceptions and rules for living (and dying), different attitudes toward medical treatment, and diverse spiritualities. Selected cultural traditions will be studied.

Offered on campus