As experiences, pain and healing would seem to be straightforward: something is broken or hurting, and is in need of fixing. But what is seen to be “broken” and how to “fix” it are always culturally and historically specific; and they change with time. What’s more, our diagnoses for suffering or illnesses (what we might think of as interruptions) often say as much about the cultural context and historical moment in which people live as they do about any strictly physiological or psychological experience. This course explores a range of themes around bodily wholeness and bodily breakdown in contemporary worlds and in the ancient world (including ancient Christian literature, ancient medical literature, and ancient practices around illness and healing). It asks how ancient people understood their symptoms and their illnesses in relationship to the larger social body and divine beings, comparing these notions with contemporary assumptions and practices. It tracks the way body, psyche and society are not always easily distinguished, and the way religion in the contemporary world figures, sometimes invisibly, in diagnosis and treatment. For example, we will explore depression as a symptom of socio-political life, tracking its history before the modern era, including its associations with “sin”; and we will observe how Christian religious morality framed and exacerbated the AIDS crisis. Lastly, we will engage in self-reflective writing about our own experiences with health, illness, and healing.