This course was born from the belief that 'Medicine', in all its iterations, does not talk enough about art or about feminism. We define 'art' broadly to include visual art, poetry, essays, podcasts and more. This course will offer several conceptualizations of 'feminism', where no meaning is stable or complete. Both 'art' and 'feminism' are living categories, and become especially buzzing and invigorated when brought together. 

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There are five units (you may choose to spend a whole year on one unit, adding your own readings or artworks as you please). In Unit One, we set our foundation by reflecting on the notion of hegemony. From there, Units Two/Three/Four/Five, Pain/Motherhood/Love/Violence respectively, take up topics that speak to how the personal is political. Each unit includes 'readings' and 'artwork' - these are false binaries, but the categories help organize things. 

 

This module does not promise to produce any particular competency in the learner, rather, it will help spark and develop a feminist posture; to develop a posture is to develop a bearing, an orientation, an approach. We insist that a feminist posture allows us, as trainees, to connect our advocacies to other social struggles, to reimagine systems of health care that are more just and equitable, to reconsider the assumptions of our textbooks and guidelines, to recognize that everything is political, to recognize the stakes, and to have hope. This course does not offer easy answers, concrete principles, or a manual for good feminism. Instead, it might nudge you to probe into that which we take for granted, to have fun, to experiment with other modes of inquiry, to stay with art, to think deeply about poems, and to reckon with contradictions, imagining a third way out.

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As you engage with the course content, open yourself to the possibility that you could be changed by what you encounter, and how you encounter it. Don't look for the clear, clean connections to clinical work. For now, trust that art for art's sake or reading for reading's sake is profoundly valuable. 

 

 

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