Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus · Courses
HHUM
10 courses with the subject HHUM, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
HHUM 110NHealth, Illness, and the Human Condition3
This survey course explores the human experience of health and illness from a combined social/behavioral science and humanities perspective. Topics may include the following: the body in art, science, and history; models of normality and disease; family, patient, and practitioner stories; adaptation to illness; health care relationships; principles and psychology of health care ethics; cultural aspects of end-of-life; identity, meaning, and mental health in health care professionals. Reading, writing, and discussion will give students in all majors a set of skills and knowledge for understanding individuals and groups in the context of health and illness. Texts include fiction; poetry; graphic memoir; film; essays; and social science research and theory. Students will experiment with various writing genres to understand and challenge disciplinary boundaries, and creative projects will provide experience with diverse methods and types of knowledge. The arena of health and illness presents a valuable opportunity for integrating social/behavioral science and humanities in analyzing and solving real world problems. Despite technological advances, health care is essentially a human-to-human endeavor, so the humanities and social sciences are necessary to complement biomedical perspectives. This course provides transferable skills and a framework for addressing similar challenges and opportunities in a range of fields that students may encounter in the future.
HHUM 111NExploration of Allied Health Professions3
This course is an integrative, interdomain (GHW, GH) course for students pursuing health-related professions, considering health science/allied health fields, or interested in appreciating healthcare in its broader and historical context. It provides a comprehensive understanding of five allied health professions (occupational therapy, physical therapy, radiological sciences, medical laboratory technology, and biomedical engineering technology), emphasizing their critical role in healthcare, the diversity of related career options, and the skills required to excel in these fields. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, case studies, and evidenced based research students will gain insight into national and international influences, current practices, and health promotion in allied health. For the humanities (GH) portion of this course, students will gain an understanding of these professions in a historical context. It examines the historical background of the allied health professions using primary and secondary sources and learning basic techniques of the humanities. Students will learn about the origins, expansion, and current trends of these allied health professions from the 19th century through the present and how these events developed and transformed healthcare. Students will examine such questions as continuity and change; how and why change occurs; and the roles played by technology.
HHUM 112 provides students with a comprehensive and balanced introduction to the practice of one of the most popular health and wellness practices today. We will cover the ancient roots of this technique, how it was extracted from religion and secularized, its scientifically verified health benefits, and the emerging social critiques of the practice. Mindfulness will be studied in an interdisciplinary way, weaving together perspectives such as history, religious studies, Asian studies, philosophy, psychology, social sciences, economics, and neuroscience, depending on the specific expertise of the instructor. The class will also allow students to spend a significant amount of time learning to actually practice mindfulness for themselves.
This inter-domain (GH and GS) course will introduce students to the application of technology-ethics and bioethics, as well as the humanities (especially health and medical humanities) and the social sciences, through the lens of science fiction and speculative fiction. As an inter-domain course, it will: (1) develop foundational knowledges across the disciplines of the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences; and (2) encourage an appreciation for the plethora of stakeholders and often-competing values and interests underlying bioethical/technology-ethics concerns. By applying ethics-based, analytical arguments and counterarguments, students will engage in civil, reasoned debate on highly charged, challenging topics using ethical frameworks. In addition, given exposure to a wide range of non-canonical authors and other creators with varied intersectionalities, students will engage with the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
