| Kommentar |
This seminar focuses on a selection of literary works on the plague, fictional pandemics and the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim is to identify a literary aesthetics of the pandemic as well as common poetological patterns. We will read excerpts of Boccaccio’s Decamerone (ca. 1350), Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) and Mary Shelley’s dystopian novel The Last Man (1826). We will also read one or two short stories as well as Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003). We might also look at Emily St Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014). In addition, we’ll take a look at Hollywood Blockbuster World War Z (2013).
We will finalize our reading list in the first session. If you want to get a head start for the reading in this course, please begin with Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (the latest paperback edition seems to be from 2013, ISBN: 978-0349004068). |
