Plague: a geneaolgy of experience 3800-ZGD23-S-OG

Plague has accompanied human communities since time immemorial, and its emergence always causes a crisis. The direct effects of natural events such as epidemics and pandemics are not limited to the disruption of social and economic structures but can also be seen in the way in which issues directly related to pestilence such as health are presented, but also in the way in which we think about the community or the individual existence.
During the course will be discussed both documents containing the experience of an epidemic, but also philosophical and historical texts that attempt to describe particular epidemics and pandemics in terms of their political-economic and cultural significance. The course aims at disclosing specific experiences of epidemics and pandemics and to capture the role they played in shaping the imagination and the philosophical and political vocabulary, but also how historical plagues shaped aesthetic and moral regimes.

Type of course

elective seminars
general courses

Course coordinators

Urszula Zbrzeźniak

Learning outcomes

- student knows and understands specific issues (factual and methodological) and the most important new developments within the chosen philosophical discipline
- student knows and understands the role of philosophical reflection in the shaping of culture
- student knows and understands specialist terminology in Polish
- student knows and understands the main developmental trends of the humanities discipline in which his/her studies are conducted

- student can correctly apply the learned philosophical terminology
- student is able to interpret a philosophical text, commenting on and confronting theses derived from various texts
- student can creatively and innovatively use philosophical and methodological knowledge in formulating hypotheses and constructing critical arguments
- student is able to initiate a debate

- student is ready to identify the knowledge and skills they possess
- student is prepared to recognise gaps in their knowledge and skills and to look for opportunities to remedy these gaps
- student is ready to evaluate independently and critically the achievements within the given humanities discipline

Assessment criteria

The final grade is based upon:
- activity
- a paper or an essay

Number of absences: 2

Bibliography

1. Tukidydes „Wojna peloponeska” (fragment)i
2. W. Rosen „Justinian’s Flea”
3. J. Bellich „The Wrold the Palgue Made”
4. Ch. Boeckl „Images of Plague and Pestilence”
4. V. Traversa „The Theme of Plague in Italian Letters”
5. Boccaccino „Dekameron”
6. Strozzi „An Epistle Written Concerning the Plague”
7. J. Henderson „Florence under the Siege”
8. R. Totaro, E. Gilman „Representing the Plague in Early Modern England”
9. W. Dafoe „Dziennik roku zarazy”
10. L. Engelman, J. Henderson, Ch. Lynteris „Plague and the City”
11. Ch. Hamlin “Cholera. The Biography”
12. R. J. Morris “The Cholera 1832”
13. M. Honigsbaum “A History of the Great Influenza Pandemics”
14. G. Beiner “Pandemic Re-AwakeningsThe Forgotten and Unforgotten
‘Spanish’ Flu of 1918–1919”

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 3800-ZGD23-S-OG in USOSweb