UTMB Dermatology offers "Skin Diseases in World Literature" elective

A new elective, "Skin Diseases in World Literature" (DERU-4011) is now being offered for UTMB and visiting medical students with an interest about the impact of infectious, autoimmune and malignant skin diseases on literary characters and plot development http://ar.utmb.edu/04-05review/bdisplay.asp?rec=396 The course is offered during all periods of the academic year and up to 5 students are permitted to enroll during each period. Dr. Richard Wagner is the course director. Students will read and discuss three required books: The Plague (Albert Camus, 1947), Cancer Ward (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1968) and The Centaur (John Updike, 1963). For the final week of the course, students will select one of three recently published novels to read: On A Night Like This (Ellen Sussman, 2004, melanoma), Isolation Ward (Joshua Spanogle, 2006, infectious disease) or Flawless (Joshua Spanogle, 2007, facial tumors) as the basis of a critical essay due on the last Friday of the period. Additional novels for the final paper may be added for the final writing project book list at the suggestion of course participants.The dermatology department library will lend the required and final project books to students taking this class.