ENGL6307 · English

Seminar: Literature and Contagion

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This seminar explores the representation of contagion through a cluster of novels and essays from the 17th century to the present. Our focus is not on individual illness/suffering, but instead on wider issues evokes by illness on a large (even massive) scale prior to and after Covid-19. How do issues of class, ethnicity, gender, political or national affiliation impact the way we understand these issues? How do borders and affiliations get drawn through imagining (and curtailing) epidemics? Literary texts depict contagion in ways that can confirm as well as challenge historical and sociological studies. Our focus is on the literary; we will explore the heroes and anti-heroes of plague narratives; the relationship these texts draw between emerging states and individuals around questions of disease; the rise (and limits) to biopower; and the survival of humanity after pandemic in recent science fiction.