My dissertation examines late medieval literature through the lens of medical history, especially humoral psychology. Although the humors are still of interest to the history of medicine, they are often overlooked in current literary criticism. My project examines how the humors influenced representations of bodies in medieval literary texts (St. Erkenwald, Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, Richard Coer de Lyon, and Marie de France's Yonec). In chapters exploring the connection between the humors and religious devotion, marriage, cannibalism, and shape-shifting, I show that humoral psychology was not just a medical theory known to medieval medical practitioners, but also a deeply influential cosmology for the literary representation of bodies and emotions. I approach this project from two angles, using a methodology that relies on textual analysis and cultural contextualization. My work also aligns itself with scholars who have explored early modern works through the lens of historical phenomenology (Smith, Paster, Floyd-Wilson, Rowe). The project moreover encourages and contributes to the dialogue between the humanities and sciences in general and literature and medicine more specifically, as it makes connections to medical theories post-Descartes (Damasio) and to current scholarship regarding non-Western medical practices (Horden; Hsu) that discuss debates about balancing emotions and locating those emotions within the physical body. My project thus provides an analytical approach for interpreting medieval literature via medical models while also showing what the medieval period can contribute to the ongoing work of assessing the role of emotions in the past and its continued resonance in current medical debates.

Many health professions are exploring the unique qualities of humanities for insights about humanistic practices, however humanities-based pedagogy has particular relevance to occupational therapy. Given the pressures to standardize and rely on quantitative evidence in occupational therapy practice, it is particularly important to provide students with a strong foundation in humanistic principles that are at the core of the profession. This doctoral project used the pedagogy of John Dewey and evidence in health humanities to develop a humanities-informed course in occupational therapy titled, Perspectives on Disability and Health and Older Adults. The course design integrates physical and biological sciences, social sciences and humanities to offer multi-focal insights into the perspectives of others, and to foster self-awareness and reflexivity. Students will engage with interdisciplinary faculty and older adults in experiences with visual art, performance, and literature to explore human experiences relating to occupation. The course aims for students to advance their understanding of the artistry of practice, to foster client-centered practice, and to advance critical thinking. An evaluation using both formative and summative methods will be used to improve the course and assess its impact on students. The project provides an example for other faculty who are inspired to use humanities to teach client centeredness, artistry of practice and critical thinking. Deweyan informed humanities based learning may contribute to wise occupational therapy practices and growth of the profession.

<p dir="ltr"><i>Conjure, Care, Calls, and Cauls</i> centers the histories of Black and southern conjuring midwives in life, lore, and literature. I argue that these conjuring midwives are practitioners of wholistic care who employ conjure work as a method to access wholeness. This avenue to access Black wholeness was intentionally disrupted by 20^th century physicians across the United States and the South. These physicians espoused <i>disabling racist rhetoric</i> to attack Black midwives’ bodies and beliefs as dangerous, casting them as unreliable and unsafe caregivers. Widely circulated in US medical journals, physicians articulated a national and regional “midwife problem” that led to the overwhelming removal of Black midwives from US medical care. This successful displacement of Black midwives by Western medicine and its physicians created and perpetuated what I name the <i>crazy conjure lady trope</i>, the disabling stereotype that considers the Black folk health practitioner or believer as crazy, insane, or otherwise unwell in Black women’s literature and lives. Using Black feminist literary criticism and a Black feminist disability framework, I consider Toni Cade Bambara’s <i>The Salt Eaters </i>(1981), Gloria Naylor’s <i>Mama Day </i>(1988), and Jesmyn Ward’s <i>Sing, Unburied, Sing </i>(2017) alongside Black midwives’ ethnographies and autobiographies to center and consider the Black southern conjuring midwife in Black women’s literature and US history.</p>