Course Website

Course Syllabus

Course Description:

This class introduces how people in different parts of the world have understood why we get
sick and how we get better. How did the “same” body look so profoundly different across time
and place? To answer this question, we will look at medical histories through a diverse range
of perspectives with visits to collections at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Texas Medical
Center. From closely reading bodies—how they looked and the contexts in which they
developed—this class will teach new approaches to understanding practices associated with
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Galenic medicine, and more.

Learning Outcomes:

In this course, you will learn how to 1) comprehend different frameworks for dealing with
disease and the body, 2) grasp the conditions that lead to medical plurality, 3) compare
different historical moments of diverse theory and practice, 4) closely read and contextualize
primary sources, and 5) develop visual and oral skills for communicating original research
questions.

DMC Support:

The class made use of our in-class workshops to learn audio editing techniques with Audacity and Garageband, which they were then able to employ in our audio studio to record their final projects. Additionally, they made use of our digital lab’s scanning resources to scan tracings they made of various medical images from cultures around the world, which they then were able to print at large scale using the DMC’s high resolution inkjet plotter.