Plague Narratives: The Rhetoric of Catastrophe (@Richard Hugo House, beginning Feb 1)

This six-week reading course will look at the rhetorical challenge of representing current and future catastrophic harm and risk, using plague narratives as a point of departure.

Full reading list below.

Meets: Saturday, February 1, 2014 – Saturday, March 8, 2014
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Richard Hugo House

General: $245.00
Members of Hugo House: $220.50

Information on registration and financial aid.

Readings

Week 1 – Introduction to History of the Plague

• John Kelly, The Great Mortality (chapters 1-5)

Week 2 – Some Key Plague Narratives

• Procopius, History of the Wars (Book II, xxii-xxxiii) – 542 AD*
• Boccaccio, The Decameron (Introduction) – 1353 AD**
• Rosemary Horrox (trans. And ed.), The Black Death (various accounts) – 14th Century**
• Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepys Diary (1665-1667) (http://www.pepys.info/1665/plague.html)*
• Nathaniel Hodges, Loimologia (sections I-III) – 1672 AD*

Week 3 – Daniel Defoe – A Journal of the Plague Year

• Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year – 1722 AD*

Week 4 – Visions of End Times – Real and Imagined

• Clear and present threats: global warming, new pandemics, Malthusian catastrophe, mass extinction, genetic uniformity and crop blights, bioterrorism, supervolcanic eruptions, megatsunamis
  • Damian Carrington, “Planet likely to warm by 4C by 2100, scientists warn” (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/31/planet-will-warm-4c-2100-climate)*
  • Bellamy Pailthorp, “Sea Level Rise Map Shows 30 Wash. Towns Inundated” (http://www.kplu.org/post/sea-level-rise-map-shows-30-wash-towns-inundated)*
  • Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (Chapter 7) – 1798*
  • Molly Billings, “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918” (http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/)*
  • Martin Fackler, “Powerful Quake and Tsunami Devastate Northern Japan” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html)*
  • Edward Ortiz, “Bioterrorism concerns keep genetic code for new strain of botulism under wraps” (http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/18/3674754/bioterrorism-concerns-keep-genetic.html)*
  • University of California Berkeley’s Understanding Evolution website, “Monoculture and the Irish Potato Famine: cases of missing genetic variation” (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture_02)*
  • Rebecca Morelle, “Yellowstone supervolcano ‘even more colossal’” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25312674)*
  • Jim Galasyn, “50 doomiest graphs of 2013” – December 31, 2013 (http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2013/12/50-doomiest-graphs-of-2013.html)*
• Distant and imagined threats: black holes, impact events (asteroids), decline in atmospheric oxygen, experimental accidents (e.g., high-energy physics), technological singularity, extraterrestrial invasion, zombie apocalypse
  • Eben Harrell, “Collider Triggers End-of-World Fears” (http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1838947,00.html)*
  • Phil Plait, “NASA’s Wise Asteroid Hunter Back in Business” (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/20/neowise_nasa_s_asteroid_hunter_is_back_in_business.html)*
  • Peter Tatchell, “The oxygen crisis” (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.climatechange)*
  • Fay Schlesinger, “Stephen Hawking: Earth could be at risk of an invasion by aliens living in ‘massive ships’” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1268712/Stephen-Hawking-Aliens-living-massive-ships-invade-Earth.html)*
  • Ben Popper, “Rapture of the nerds: will the Singularity turn us into gods or end the human race?” (http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/22/3535518/singularity-rapture-of-the-nerds-gods-end-human-race)*
  • David Wong, “5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen” (http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html)*
• Linear religious eschatology
  • Judaic: various books of the Hebrew  Bible – dating back to the 10th century AD (summary)
  • Christian: Book of Revelation (King James Bible) – 95 AD*
  • Zoroastrian (Persian): Bahman Yasht (or Zand of the Vohuman Yast) – 6th century AD  (read summary)*
  • Islamic: Sūrat al-Qiyāma (75th chapter of the Quran) – 7th century AD

Week 5 – Risk Perception and Coping Mechanisms

• Albert Camus, The Plague
• William S. Burroughs, “Twilight’s Last Gleamings” (from The Paris Review, No. 109, Winter 1988)**
• Kristin Jackson, “Exploring the tragic beauty of Hawaii’s remote Kalaupapa” (http://seattletimes.com/html/travel/2020308049_kalaupapahawaiixml.html)*
• David Quammen, “Anticipating the Next Pandemic” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/anticipating-the-next-pandemic.html?pagewanted=all)*
• Anthony Costello et al, “Global health and climate change: moving from denial and catastrophic fatalism to positive action” (http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1942/1866.full)*
• Coral Davenport, “The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change” (http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-coming-gop-civil-war-over-climate-change-20130509)*
• Helen Thomson, “Japanese fatalistic about risk of death from earthquake” (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20267-japanese-fatalistic-about-risk-of-death-from-earthquake.html)*
• Kenneth Worthy, “Despair, Courage, & Hope in an Age of Environmental Turmoil” (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-mind/201311/despair-courage-hope-in-age-environmental-turmoil)*
• James Wesley Rawles, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times(chapter 1, “The Survival Mind-set for Living in Uncertain Times”)**
• Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (chapters 1-2)**
• Emily Matchar, “Boom Times” (http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/outdoor-skills/survival/Boom-Times-20120801.html)*
• Alan Feuer, “The Preppers Next Door” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/nyregion/the-doomsday-preppers-of-new-york.html?_r=0)*
• Richard Morgan, “Life After Earth: Imagining Survival Beyond This Terra Firma” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/science/01arc.html)*
• Roger Highfield, “Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1359562/Colonies-in-space-may-be-only-hope-says-Hawking.html)*
• Margaret Hartmann, “The ‘End Times’ Are Upon Us, According to Michele Bachmann” (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/end-times-bachmann.html)*

Week 6 – Understanding Resistance and Inspiring Action

• Stephan Dickert and Paul Slovic, “Unstable values in lifesaving decisions” (http://www.frontiersin.org/cognition/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00294/full)*
• Paul Slovic et al, “Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life” (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/227004861_Insensitivity_to_the_Value_of_Human_Life_A_Study_of_Psychophysical_Numbing/file/50463529ac0c0cac90.pdf)*
• George Marshall, “Why We Find It So Hard to Act Against Climate Change” (http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-action/why-we-find-it-so-hard-to-act-against-climate-change)*
• Dan Gilbert, “If only gay sex caused global warming” (http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/02/opinion/op-gilbert2)*
• Fiza Salim, “Culture, Politics, and Religion: Exploring Resistance to Vaccinations in South Asia” (http://www.academia.edu/3158834/Culture_Politics_and_Religion_Exploring_Resistance_to_Vaccinations_in_South_Asia)*
• Kharunya Paramaguru, “The Battle Over Global Warming Is All in Your Head” (http://science.time.com/2013/08/19/in-denial-about-the-climate-the-psychological-battle-over-global-warming)*
• Dan M. Kahan et al, “The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change” (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1871503_code45442.pdf?abstractid=1871503&mirid=5)*
• Richard Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (chapter 2, “Why so little is being done about the catastrophic risks”)**
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “World Social Science Report: Changing global environments” (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002233/223388e.pdf)*
• Adam Corner, “Why the World Won’t Listen” (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/09/ipcc_climate_change_denial_psychology_and_human_nature_trump_science_and.html)*
• Al Gore, “Climate of Denial: Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?” (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622)*

*Available online

**Will be included in course reader