Requirements

Contact:

Laura Wittman   
lwittman [at] stanford.edu (lwittman[at]stanford[dot]edu) (co-director)

Tanya Luhrmann  
luhrmann [at] stanford.edu (luhrmann[at]stanford[dot]edu) (co-director) 

Emily Bishop  
mguillen [at] stanford.edu (ebishop1[at]stanford[dot]edu) (administration)

Requirements:

25 units: 4 in the core course, Introduction to the Medical Humanities; 1 for participation in the workshop for at least one quarter; 20 more in at least 4 courses from at least two disciplines connected to Medical Humanities (we will provide students with a list of possible courses, though will also be open to student additions to that list) including 2 more possible units for the final presentation preparation.

Open to Stanford University undergraduates.

Our core course: Introduction to the Medical Humanities (ANTHRO 120H/DLCL 120/French 120E/ ITALIAN 120) In 25-26, the course is offered Winter quarter 2026, with Dr. Amrapali Maitra.

This class is a seminar to introduce students to the three key areas of Medical Humanities:

  1. Healing and the arts, which includes narrative medicine, often described as the use of art and literature to enhance our capacity to listen and to understand, and arts practices more generally.
  2. The social context, which includes ethnographic and historical approaches to understanding disease and illness, cultural differences in the expression of illness, and the social role of practitioners.
  3. Justice and policy, which includes the ethical and political challenges around health, including racial diversity, economic inequality, migration, bioethics, and environmental justice.

The Medical Humanities Workshop (ANTHRO 443) meets several times each quarter to hear from a broad array of speakers, including activists, artists and scholars. The workshop typically meets Wednesday 5:30-7pm.