Being quarantined during a deadly pandemic is a new experience for all of us. Our ancestors occasionally faced worse. They left behind accounts of great power and insight. In a six-part symposium, Lawrence Technological University is hosting an online discussion of some of the masterpieces of plague literature.

Session 1 “Disease as Moral Event.”

Sunday, April 12.  7:00-8:30 p.m. EST.

Panelists:
Prof. Ty Faulkner
Dr. Louis Finkelman
Dr. Philip Vogt

Texts:             
“The Book of Job.”
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
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Session 2 “Sheltering in Place like an Expert.”

Friday, April 17.  7:00-8:30 p.m. EST.

Panelists:       

Dr. Valerio Cappozzo
Prof. Serge Danielson-Francois
Dr. Philip Vogt

Texts:             
Boccaccio, The Decameron.
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Session 3 "Bearing Witness (Reliably or Not)."

 Friday, April 24.  7:00-8:30 p.m. EST.

Panelists:       
Ms. Sarah Fewkes
Dr. James Rodgers
Dr. Michael Carignan

Texts:
Samuel Pepys, Diary.
Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year.
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Session 4 “You Couldn’t Make this Up: Fictionalized Accounts of Plague.”

Friday, May 1.  7:00-8:30 p.m. EST.

Panelists:
Dr. Vivian Kao
Dr. Paula Eckard
Dr. Natalie Zacek

Texts: 
Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel.
Charles Brockden Brown, Arthur Mervyn.

 View Recording
Session 5 “Eros, Healthy and Diseased.”

Friday, May 8.  7:00-8:30 p.m.

Panelists:
Dr. Paul Jaussen 
Dr. Omar Vargas
Dr. Philip Vogt
Dr. Michael Goyette

Texts: 
Plato, Symposium.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

 View Recording
Session 6 "Literarily (not Literally) Sick: Illness and Literary Theory."

 Friday, May 15.  7:00-8:30 p.m.

Panelists:

Dr. T. Kenny Fountain
Dr. Paul Jaussen
Dr. Tim Moran
Dr. Sheila Teahan 

Texts:             
Susan Sontag, “AIDS and its Metaphors.”

 View Recording

plague literature in the time of coronavirus

plague symposium

plague lit 2

plague lit 2

Dr. Valerio Cappozzo
Associate Professor of Italian and Secretary of the American Boccaccio Association
Department of Modern Languages The University of Mississippi
Dr. Michael Carignan
Associate Professor of History
Elon University
Professor Serge Danielson-Francois
Adjunct Instructor, Literature and Composition
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. Paula Eckard
Professor and Department Chair, English
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Professor Ty Faulkner
Director, Pathways/Grand Challenges Program
Lawrence Technological University
Ms. Sarah Fewkes
Peer-Review Process Specialist
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Dr. Louis Finkelman
Co-Rabbi, Congregation Or Chaddash
Adjunct Instructor in Literature and Composition
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. T. Kenny Fountain
Associate Professor and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum Department of English
University of Virginia
Dr. Michael Goyette
Instructor of Classics
Eckerd College
Dr. Paul Jaussen
Associate Professor of English
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. Vivian Kao
Assistant Professor of Literature and Composition
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. Tim Moran
Senior Lecturer, Irvin D. Reid Honors College
Wayne State University
Dr. James Rodgers
Emeritus Professor of English
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. Sheila Teahan
Emerita Professor of English
Michigan State University
Dr. Omar Vargas
Assistant Professor of Spanish Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures
University of Miami
Dr. Philip Vogt
Associate Professor of History
Lawrence Technological University
Dr. Natalie Zacek
Senior Lecturer, English and American Studies
The University of Manchester