WiSe 20/21: S-Culture-Gender-Media: A Cultural History of Epidemics and Pandemics
Sabine Schülting
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The last months have witnessed the return of an old enemy – and companion – of mankind: epidemic diseases. Even in our contemporary world, they represent a considerable threat to human life and health. But for centuries (or even millennia) epidemics and pandemics have also thoroughly affected culture, leading to upheavals in politics and economy and changing everyday ways of life. Last but not least they have been represented, narrated and imagined in literature and the arts. These various responses offer an insight into the changing concepts of the body and the origin of diseases. They are indicative of the impact of epidemics on ethical frameworks as well as on the construction of cultural and individual identities, often vis-à-vis cultural ‘others’. – The course spans a few hundred years, from the early modern age to the present day, and addresses a broad range of theoretical, fictional and non-fictional texts as well as visual representations dealing with major epidemics and pandemics, from the plague and the cholera to Covid-19.
In addition to recent responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, our readings will include Thomas Browne on the plague (mid 17th century); excerpts from Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on the smallpox (early 18th century); journalistic accounts, cartoons and poetry on the cholera in Victorian England; Philip Roth’s novel Nemesis (dealing with a polio outbreak in 1944); and Emily St John Mandel’s apocalyptic novel Station Eleven (2014) about a flu that almost completely wipes out humanity.
Students should buy the following two novels (in inexpensive paperback editions): Philip Roth, Nemesis (Vintage paperback), and Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven (Picador paperback). All other texts will be made available via Blackboard. We will proceed chronologically, i.e. start with the early modern texts.
Assessment: Students are expected to participate regularly, read the assigned texts, participate in the discussions, and contribute a presentation and/or a response paper. For the regular BA-Vertiefungsmodul, you will have to write an essay of c. 4000 words, to be submitted by the beginning of the new semester (12 April 2021). Exchange students (2nd or 3rd year BA) are of course welcome and can gain up to 10 ECTS.
The course will be taught primarily via WebEx video meetings (synchronously). Depending on the pandemic situation and the size of the group, we will meet occasionally on campus in small groups. These meetings won’t be mandatory and they will take place during the regular time slot of our course. Details about the organisation of the course as well as a link for the WebEx meetings will be posted on Blackboard in the last week of October.
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Regular appointments