ENGL3820 · English

Strange Doctors: Nineteenth-Century Literature and Medicine

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Who is a "mad" or "strange" doctor? What makes us see some doctors as professional or expert, while others are relegated to the realms of pseudoscience, or quackery? How might we engage with the figure of the strange doctor in the context of literature and media about doctors, nurses, care-workers, and medicine? In this course, we will look closely at fictional and historical doctors, nurses, and medical practitioners in nineteenth-century British and imperial literature to critically examine the strange doctor alongside representations of health and medicine. By bringing characters like Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Moreau alongside the work of writers like Mary Seacole and Harriet Martineau, this course focuses on how the figure of the strange doctor is developed, and what cultural and literary issues it illuminates and responds to. We will consider issues such as gender, race, class, nationality, and more as we contend with the cultural lineages of these figures today, and how they have been taken up imaginatively, critically, and subversively across the world.