In her essay, “On Being Ill,” Virginia Woolf diagnoses the impoverishment of the English language for its failure to accurately represent the experience of sickness. For centuries, writers have attempted to give linguistic shape to physical and mental suffering, but Woolf insists we need a new vocabulary—words “subtle” and “sensual”—to faithfully express the body’s tremors and throes, cancers and convulsions. In this course, we will trace literary and medical representations of illness and healing from the early modern period to the present, paying attention not only to those who suffer but also to those who care for the suffering. Authors may include Audre Lorde, Paul Kalanithi, Atul Gawande, Jeannette Winterson, Margaret Edson, and John Donne. Topics may include biopolitics, illness and metaphor, mental health, the ethics of care, disability, and the evolving field of the health humanities.