Unit Wish-List (1)
I am a little sick of the pandemic (ha), but one day, I would like to do an interdisciplinary unit that explores the contagion narrative in contrast to historical records. I took a English elective online last year through Trent University and was drawn to the course description which read as follows (emphasis added):
Explores intersections between medicine and literature with particular attention to the representation of outbreaks and pandemics in historical and contemporary fiction, graphic novels, dystopian works, and film. What does it mean to narrate contagion? What might fictions of contagion teach us about our communities, our priorities, and our (in)humanity?
Until the events of the last few years, I never thought about the contagion narrative nor how these narratives illustrate our communities. The professor, Dr. Kelly McGuire, created an engaging course that explored works such as Daniel Defoe’s The Journal of the Plague Year, Philip Roth’s Nemesis, Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, and Ling Ma’s Severance among other novels, films and video game portrayals of plague and contagion. It was honestly fascinating to consider the impact of these stories, the structural elements akin to detective narratives, and the eery similarities between the progression of the fictional diseases and Covid-19.
To say I was inspired by the course is an understatement. Fascinated would be a better word. I think that the contagion narrative would be great content to explore for G8 students and up from both an English and humanities perspective—although I think novel selections would push this more to grade 9 or 10.
In humanities, students could explore historical plagues such as the Bubonic Plague, the Great Plague of London Plague, or the Great Influenza post WWI. What did governments do? Were they successful? How did the public react? What were common beliefs at the time? How did these plagues impact our understanding of medicine, health and cultural norms?
Image courtesy of Montclair Library in Oakland, California
In English, students could pick a contagion narrative to study, exploring how the author shows the progression of the disease, uses the disease as a metaphor, and creates (or breaks) borders between peoples. There’s also the questions of scapegoats, carriers, and the ultimate difference between an outbreak narrative and a pandemic narrative.
It would be such a rich and engaging unit to plan with so many possibilities for crossover between the two subject disciplines! So maybe someday. A unit for my wish-list.
Potential Novel List to get started:
The Dreamers by Karen Thomas Walker
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel’s
The Plague by Albert Camus
The End of October by Lawrence Wright
Blindness by José Saramago
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
