Topics in Literature
Topic: Pandemics and Literature
Class Information
Instructor: Menely, Tobias
CRN: 53632
Time: TR 12:10-1:30
GE Areas: Writing Experience
Description
In this seminar, we'll study the long history of literary representations of plagues and pandemics. We'll begin with Lucretius's depiction of the Athenian plague in Of the Nature of Things (55 BCE), then turn to Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826), Albert Camus's The Plague (1947), Tony Kushner's Angels in America (1991), and Ling Ma's Severance (2018). We'll also watch Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1958). These outbreak narrative will provide a rich archive for us to consider as we discuss the rhetorical difficulties of representing contagion, the challenge of knowing and understanding infectious disease, but also the ways in which pandemics can render acutely visible the economic, socio-ecological, and existential conditions of life.
Grading
Discussion forum, short essays, take-home final exam