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| Campus | Bryn Mawr |
| Semester | Spring 2025 |
| Registration ID | ENGLB243001 |
| Course Title | Disease and Discourse |
| Credit | 1.00 |
| Department | Health Studies |
| Instructor | Alcaro,Mary M. |
| Times and Days | TTh 11:40am-01:00pm
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| Room Location | |
| Additional Course Info | Class Number: 2440 When did consumption become tuberculosis? What does it mean when someone calls COVID-19 the China Virus? As human beings are confronted with novel contagions, we are also forced to grapple with the psychological and cultural impact that these illnesses have on our societies; the words we use to describe these diseases matter. In this course, we will examine literature produced during significant historical epidemics, including: divine punishment and early Christian views of leprosy; apocalypticism and the Black Death; the moralization of the AIDS crisis, and the unprecedented times of COVID. Readings will include such texts as Bocaccios Decameron, Defoes The Journal of a Plague Year, Mary Shelleys The Last Man, and Tony Kushners Angels in America. Guided by work by critics like Susan Sontag (Illness as Metaphor) and contemporary scholarship in disability studies, trauma theory, and narrative medicine, we will take an interdisciplinary approach to textual production and genre, putting medical, religious, literary, and historical texts in conversation in order to better understand their reciprocal influences. Along the way, we will consider: How does language affect our perception of diseases and those who contract them? Approach: Critical Interpretation (CI); Haverford: Humanities (HU) ( ) Enrollment Cap: 25; If the course exceeds the enrollment cap the following criteria will be used for the lottery: ENGL Major by class (seniors, then juniors, then sophomore, then ENGL Minor by class (seniors, then juniors, then sophomore). |
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