Stanford Medicine
Sci-Fi and Medicine: Graphic Medicine, Comics, and Imagination
JULY 6 - JULY 17, 2026
Sci-Fi and Medicine: Graphic Medicine, Comics, and Imagination is a two-week course that explores how speculative storytelling and visual narratives shape the ways we understand the human body, illness, technology, and care. Using graphic novels, comics, classic and contemporary science fiction, pop culture, and emerging medical research, students examine medicine past, present, and future while sharpening critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Through case studies ranging from Frankenstein to superhero narratives, space medicine, AI, and disability representation, the course invites students to ask “what if?” about the ethical and scientific possibilities of healthcare. Students will apply these ideas by creating an original short medical comic, storyboard, or speculative scenario that imagines new futures for medicine and healing.
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Only 3 spots remaining, register soon!
Final Deadline: June 22, 2026
Instructor: Dr. Sakena De Young-Scaggs
Rev. Dr. Sakena Young-Scaggs is the former Senior Associate Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life and Pastor of Memorial Church. Rev. Dr. Sakena Young-Scaggs is an unyielding voice on race, gender, and social justice. She holds a BA in Italian Culture and Language and a BA in Political Science & International Studies. After completing both her MDiv and STM at Boston University, she worked and served in Higher Education for over a decade as what she calls an "academic midwife" lending to her contention that we must birth new life every day in the academy and nurture students toward their success. “Rev. Dr. Sys” or simply Rev. Sys as her students call her, is an ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Dr. Young-Scaggs has given talks and lectures on race, gender, Africana folklore, Womanist theology, phenomenology, Science Fiction, and Philosophy. She continues to write and research in the areas of Afrofuturism, Womanist Phenomenology, Geographies of Race and Gender, and Religion in Higher Education. Intentionally interdisciplinary and intersectional, her work continues to interrogate transformational issues in the academy and the world.
Instructor: Dr. Stanford W. Carpenter
Stanford W. Carpenter is a cultural anthropologist, comic creator, and former archaeologist. Whether it’s through the lens of Ancient Worlds, Afrofuturism, or the EthnoGothic, he conducts archival and ethnographic research among comic creators with an archeological sensibility that teases out the relationships between people, places, time, and things. He is the academic liaison for Comicpalooza and founder of Comicpalooza University (CPU); sits on the advisory board of Abrams ComicArts Megascope imprint; and is a co-founder and former chairman of the Black & Brown Comix Arts Festival (BCAF). Dr. Carpenter recently received the Billy Ireland Museum Lucy Shelton Caswell Research award which he is using to research contemporary notions of afrofuturism, the ethnogothic/conjure culture, colonial counter narratives, and heroism as they relate to Black Press comic strips; Black comic creators; and Black creative communities from the Civil Rights and Pre Civil Rights Eras. This project builds on a forthcoming book on Black comics, creators, and characters for Fantagraphics as well as a podcast, created with the support of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, exploring the life and work of Ezra Clyde Jackson, a Black cartoonist who inspired his daughter Texas congresswoman Shiela Jackson Lee’s efforts to gain reparations.
Instructor: Dr. Lonny J Avi Brooks
Lonny J Avi Brooks is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at California State University, East Bay and he is a Visiting Professor@ the Hasso Plattner Institute for Design, Stanford University. Dr. Brooks is Co-Founder with Ahmed Best of the AfroRithm Futures Group (ARFG), imagining democratized futures as a lead co-designer of the game Afro-Rithms From The Future. He is co-executive producer of The Afrofuturist Podcast; and a contributing co-author to the anthology Afrofuturism 2.0: the Rise of Astro-Blackness. He is lead editor of the first special issue on Afrofuturism in the Journal of Futures Studies, “When is Wakanda?” (Journal of Futures Studies). He is co-organizer of the Black Speculative Arts Movement in Oakland. Dr. Brooks consults and co-directs the Community Futures School, Museum of Children’s Arts that recently was awarded a Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF) grant connecting the study of Afrofuturism, Indigenous futurism and Queer futurism in looking at the effect of futures literacy on healing and social justice. Dr. Brooks is a Research Affiliate@the Institute For The Future and a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation. He is author of “From Algorithms to AfroRithms in Afrofuturism” as a contributor to the anthology Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection.
Dr. Brooks most recent project involved playing a leading role as commander of a Mothership space ark a thousand years from now in the Multi-Species Planetary Garden project and film, reframing and creating optimistic, egalitarian narratives of how space exploration can look like honoring other species and through future visions of community oriented through biosynthetic technology as part of the Fathomers’ Emergence exhibition with the Getty series “PST: Art and Science collide”.
School of Medicine Faculty Advisor: Bryant Lin, MD, MEng
Bryant Lin, MD, MEng is a primary care physician, educator and researcher. The cornerstone of Dr. Lin's work is keeping medicine focused on humans - patients, providers, families and trainees - and not lost in technology and algorithms. His research and educational interests span (1) Developing and testing novel medical technologies, (2) Improving the health of Asian populations with Precision and Population Health, and (3) Increasing expression and interconnections in the Health Community with the Humanities and Arts. After receiving his undergraduate and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, he completed his MD and internal Medicine training at Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center.
Program Support Assistant: Shalese Jordan
Shalese Jordan is a researcher and emerging voice at the intersection of biotechnology, computation, and the human dimensions of medicine. Currently pursuing a Master’s in Translational Research and Applied Medicine at Stanford University, she brings a multidisciplinary lens to questions about how science, technology, and storytelling shape the future of health.
Her work spans leading biotech and pharmaceutical institutions, including Moderna, Merck Research Laboratories, and Nimbus Therapeutics, where she has contributed to projects in bioinformatics, functional genomics, and secure biomedical data systems. Across these experiences, she has explored how complex biological systems can be understood, modeled, and ultimately transformed into innovative therapeutic approaches.
With academic roots in biology, chemistry, and the humanities, Shalese is particularly interested in how speculative and narrative frameworks, like science fiction, can expand the boundaries of medical imagination. She is passionate about bridging rigorous scientific inquiry with creative exploration to envision more just, human-centered futures in medicine.