*** MODERN PLAGUES: CONTAGION & BIOMEDICAL DISCOURSE IN LITERATURE ***
Papers are sought for the Science and Literature Session at the 41st Midwest
Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Minneapolis, November 4-6.
This session will focus on the growing public culture of "crisis" that has
arisen in the twentieth century with the advent of biomedicine and the
comprehension of the mechanisms of contagion. Recent concern about modern
"plagues" has been a response, in part, to the AIDS pandemic, and has
revitalized fears about immigration, prostitution, and urban decay. Rapid
globalization, bringing distinct regions and races into closer contact, has
heightened the siege mentality exhibited in some parts of the press and
popular culture. As if revisiting the Victorian concept of the "white man's
grave", tropical Africa has been particularly singled out as a source of
contagion. Countless bestsellers and movies of the week pedal the latest
biohazards, and untold thousands swallows it like medicine. Plague has also
made countless appearances in the form of metaphor and model: nationalist
hatred in the former Yugoslavia has been described as a plague, teenage
pregnancy has been compared to AIDS, and police in New York City use
epidemiological models for fighting crime.
Nowadays plagues pop up in everything from sensationalist journalism to
science fiction, and from horror films to histories of medicine. Yet one need
only cite Boccaccio's "Decameron", Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year",
Thomas
Mann's "Magic Mountain" or Camus's "The Plague" to recall the persistent and
influential course of contagion through Western letters - not to mention arts.
Papers are thus sought on any aspect of the intersection of biomedical and
literary discourse, including historical approaches as well as those focusing
on contemporary debates. Especially welcome are papers that discuss the
sociopolitical dimensions of plague writing with regard to globalization,
immigration, race, and sexuality.
Please send abstracts (or papers) by February 15th to the address listed
below. Email inquiries and proposals are welcome.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Giuliana Lund
Assistant Professor
Interdisciplinary Humanities
Arizona State University
P. O. Box 870302
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
tel: 602-727-6513
fax: 602-965-9110
email: glund@asu.edu
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