updated 6-19-15
Syllabus for Literature and Medicine 2015
VA New Jersey Health Care System – East Orange Campus
January – June 2015 Main Building, 3rd floor, room 3-218 Scholar: Meredith Sue Willis Hospital Liaison: Ana Paiva
New Jersey Council on the Humanities liaison is Mary Grace Whealan
Literature & Medicine is a program partnership between the New Jersey Council for the Humanities
(http://njch.org) and VA New Jersey Health Care Systems.2014 Literature and Medicine materials, check here.
Click here for current Session
Class is over! Thank you all so much for your participation! Some updated materials—and
writings by our class in response to The Young Lions
Meredith Sue Willis
Welcome to the 2015 Edition of
Literature and Medicine!
Session I, Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Who Are the Caretakers?Welcome!
Topics that will be touched on during the first session: introductions; fiction versus nonfiction; why we read and what we read; literature as a way to deal with Big Topics; caretaking and war as part of the human condition.
Bev Brown," story, by Sybil Smith (handout).
Theresa Brown: Communicating with Patients (opinion piece)
Theresa Brown: Telling the truth to a patient (opinion piece)
Dylan Thomas: "Do not go gentle into That Dark Night." (poem)
Optional: Oliver Sacks "Hallucinations" Read (or listen) to the beginning of this sample about an experiment to see how people who "hear voices" are treated.
(Image of Theresa Brown, above and right)
Session II, February 24, 2015
Who Are the Caretakers II?Some stories (fiction and nonfiction) about the relationships among
caretakers and between caretakers and their patients--
also a little about nursing in the U.S. Civil War.
Sisters of Mercy," by Joan LeeGant
A discussion of Sympathy and empathy by David Weinberger
An Infected Heart," by John Stone (handout)
"Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams
Historical Nursing: Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches--Read Chapter Three:
Http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3837/3837-h/3837-h.htm (first published in 1863) (In this chapter, she parodies a famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson called "Charge of the Light Brigade," found here.) YouTube clip on the Civil War from the American Masters documentary The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen and Nancy Porter Scenes from film, http://www.alcottfilm.com/video-clips/video-clips/ (Civil War section, third from the top)
Image left is Louisa May Alcott: Above right is William Carlos Williams
Civil War Nurse and patients: reality and idea.
Session III
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The Warrior Ideal-- Introduction to The Young LionsClassic Writing about Battle and War.historical and contemporary views of war; the Warrior Ideal (chivalry, bushido). Begin reading The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw.
Read: The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw. Chapters 1 - 3 (through p. 55)
The following are optional readings, if you have time:
Opening of the Iliad
David and Goliath
"Once More Into the Breech!" Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, Scene I.Two World War I poems presenting an old argument about war:
"In Flanders Fields."
Dulce et Decorum EstNineteenth century war writing from Tolstoy:
Selections from War and Peace
Image right is Leo Tolstoy
Session IV, Tuesday April 21, 201
Novel: The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
World War II Young People Soldiers in Battle Irwin Shaw
The Young Lions Chapters 4 -15 (56 -244); also, Chapter 3 if you didn't read it yet
- Some brief personal experiences, mostly from the Iraq wars:
Lost in Translation
Sand, Sweat, & Gunpowder
Coming to the End of the VA Road
Session V, Tuesday, May 19, 2015
The Young Lions continued
Chapters 16-29
The Young Lions, 1958 movie and book
Note: if you want to catch up from Session IV, read only Chapters 4, 5, 10, and 11. That will bring you up to speed mostly. Here are some notes as a reminder.
ALSO: If you run short of time and want to read only the essentials for our Session V (May 19, 2015), read chapters 18 (Basic Training) and 28 (D-Day).
If you have been following the women, read Chapters 18 and 19 (Noah and Hope) and Chapter 24, (Christian and Lt. Hardenburg's wife Gretchen).
Here's the reading guide for this section that we'll be using in class 5-19-15.
The Young Lions, Chapters 16-29, (pp 245 - 516).
Film clips from The Young Lions (Don't miss the old trailer! )
"What is a Warrior" by Edward Tick (from his book, War and the Soul Questbooks, 2005)
From Powder (If you haven't read them yet):
Lost in Translation
Sand, Sweat, & Gunpowder
Coming to the End of the VA Road
Session VI , Tuesday, June 16, 2015
The Return: Those Who Stayed Home and Those Who Came Home
Finish The Young Lions, Chapters 30- 38
Reading and Discussion notes for session VI-- if you can only read part, read the chapters with ***, but especially the last chapter, # 38.
Poem: Burial, by Cathy Linh Che
Evenings With Dotson," short story by Meredith Sue Willis
The story of and some brief selections from the end of The Odyssey: a myth about how hard it is for a soldier to come home. Also ee article online at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/30/odyssey-soldier-afghanistan-military-homer .
Coming soon: Letters to the characters in The Young Lions
An interesting video (totally optional) about civilian nurses during the Vietnam War: The Other Angels
Patricia Walsh (secnd from left), civilian nurse
during Vietnam War, with patient and student nurse
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Syllabus for Literature and Medicine 2015 by Meredith Sue Willis
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.