Abstract
This chapter looks back at some of the earliest attempts by the first generation of literature-and-medicine scholars to answer the question: Why teach literature and medicine? Reviewing the development of the field in its early years, the author examines statements by practitioners to see whether their answers have held up over time and to consider how the rationales they articulated have expanded or changed in the following years and why. Greater emphasis on literary criticism, narrative ethics, narrative theory, and reflective writing has influenced current work in the field in ways that could not have been foreseen in the 1970s
A version of Anne Hudson Jones’ article, “Why Teach Literature and Medicine? Answers from Three Decades,” was first published in the Journal of Medical Humanities 34 (2013), pages 415–428, and is republished here with permission of Springer Publishing
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Jones, A.H. (2017). Why Teach Literature and Medicine? Answers from Three Decades. In: Hilger, S. (eds) New Directions in Literature and Medicine Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51988-7_3
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