Future and continuing postgraduate coursework and research students can contact the Medical Humanities Unit directly for advice about their enrolments and subject choices.
Please call 9036 3434, or email Dr Claire Hooker, the co-ordinator, at
Medical Humanities subjects available in 2008
MMHU6901 Medicine and War Semester 2 2 hour seminar per week Dr Claire Hooker Education Building Room 435, Wednesday 6pm-8pm beginning 30 July 2008
Textbooks: P. Barker, Regeneration (Penguin, 1992)
We will examine the links between medicine and war. This will be done both through substantive topics and through exposure to different intellectual and methodological approaches drawn from the humanities and social sciences, such as communicable diseases; new psychiatric problems and techniques; torture; ethical considerations concerning the involvement of the medical profession; the representation of medicine and war in literature and film (eg Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy); and in the visual arts (eg Picasso’s Guernica).
MMHU6902 Independent Study Semesters 1 and 2 Individual supervision totalling 6 hours per semester Dr Claire Hooker
Textbooks: A course reader will be supplied
Independent Study will provide an opportunity for approved candidates to pursue an extended project under supervision. Students will be expected to discuss and plan the project with their supervisor, then submit drafted material to an agreed timetable, and to discuss this drafted material with their supervisor before submitting a final draft.
MMHU6905 Medicine and Music Semester 2 2 hour seminar per week Associate Professor John Carmody and Professor Michael Field Education Building Room 435, Tuesday 6pm-8pm beginning 29 July 2008
We will examine the links between medicine and music, through substantive topics and exposure to different intellectual and methodological approaches drawn from the humanities and social sciences. Areas for discussion include music and well-being; music and healing; the psychological and physiological basis of music appreciation and the existence of phenomena such as the 'idiot savant'; the place and role of music therapy, especially in relation to psychiatric disorders (e.g. autistic spectrum disorders in children); and various historical connections (e.g. doctors as musicians, and the impact of illness on composers).