literature – Health Story Hub

Imagine What It’s Like: A Literature and Medicine Anthology

This wide-ranging anthology includes literature from a variety of historical periods, genres, and authors (a range that includes John Milton, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Louisa May Alcott, and Dylan Thomas as well as Gwendolyn Brooks, Joy Harjo, Rachel Naomi Remen, and Rafael Campo). It is organized by topics, including the experience of illness, beginnings and endings (on death and birth), trauma and recovery, coming to terms (on the time "after catastrophe, diagnosis, rescue or death," and healing costs (the experiences of caregivers, both professional and familial). In addition to 65 works (most of them 2 to 5 pages in length), the volume also includes a list of "suggested longer readings" and "notes on authors and selections."

Para vivir con salud: Leyendo la salud y la literatura.

This open-access resource describes itself this way: "Para vivir offers an introduction to reading different literary and cultural texts from the Spanish-speaking world with a thematic focus on health. It can be used as an alternative to the standard Introduction to Hispanic Literature course texts, as it also teaches techniques of close reading. It incorporates authors from seventeen counties, has an almost even representation of male and female authors and diverse communities in the Hispanic world (European, Creole, Afro Hispanic, Latinx, Indigenous, Jewish). In addition to introductions to reading different genres (narrative, poetry, theater, and film) we have scaffolded supporting material such as biographies, notes on the historical contexts, pre and post-reading questions." Although framed in terms of its uses for literature courses, the literary selections here could be incorporated into many other intermediate and higher level Spanish courses in which reading and composition are central activities. Much primary source material is included in the book itself; when not available due to copyright, there are suggestions on how instructors might be able to access them on their own. Beyond the readings themselves, the book includes a great deal of pedagogical material (introduction to genres and reading strategies), a bibliography that introduces health humanities and links literature to the work of health professionals; ideas for syllabus construction. It is downloadable.