Writing the Plague: What Stories about Covid, 1918 Influenza, and Bubonic Plague teach us about the World and Ourselves
A Fall 2024 Emeritus Society Online Zoom CourseAbout this experience
Mondays, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
October 7 - November 11
The horrors of plague are still with us. We know ourselves and our world to be deeply changed by Covid, and we are still sorting out what that change means. This class takes our experience and puts it into conversation with two other great plagues, the Black Plague and Spanish Influenza, as we read novels, short stories, diaries and poems that make these other world-changing pandemics as personal to us as Covid is. In these stories, we’ll find parallels that teach us how humans respond to crisis, how we are shaped by trauma, and what we learn after danger has passed.
We’ll discuss how place and time change how we respond to disease. But I believe we’ll emerge with a sense of connection to the past. Our readings reveal how complex the human heart is, no matter the age it lives in. People under great stress can be irrational, even cruel. But we'll discover as well as our capacity for generosity, sacrifice and humor, and our stubborn inclination towards love.
- How do pandemics happen? Science vs. Belief
- How do we respond to crisis? Medieval Europe, World War I, and the West 21st c. Globalism and Technology
- The Black Death
- The Great Influenza
- Covid 19
- How do we find our way to a new normal? What do we learn and forget?
Your Host
Hephzibah Roskelly (Ph.D., University of Louisville) is a Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and Composition. She is the recipient of the Alumni Teaching Excellent Award and the UNC Board of Governor's Teaching Excellent Award.