Ghosts, from what we learned in the play of the same name by Ibsen, are figures for public opinion. We also know that by adhering to public opinion characters often feel trapped by society and unable to find a way out. However, interestingly, this idea of ghosts also exist in the play Angels in America. […]
Read More →Archive for March, 2014
Kushner resources
Hi, all. Welcome back from spring break. I’m repeating a post from Contagion 2012 about resources for thinking about Kushner. You can also look at the conveners’ post from 2012. First let me give you a clip I plan to discuss during our first session on Angels. In the several years Cyrus Patell and […]
Read More →Our Plague…
As the first half of the semester advanced, we were more and more anxious about Spring Break. The suffocating deadlines, papers and readings seemed to progressively drive the whole student body into a study quarantine, as suggested by an earlier convener’s post. A couple of days ago, I thought about why people cross out calendars; […]
Read More →Who is Albert Camus? What’s his Philosophy?
We know his play is based on the events of WWII and the German occupation of France during the time of the World War. But how much do we really know about Camus? Due to tuberculosis, Camus had to quit playing football in university, but was still successful at attaining a degree in Philosophy. Camus […]
Read More →Radio Show about Camus’s “The Plague”
Here is a video that can help you relax from the midterms stress and learn some interesting facts about The Plague. It is good material for a long bath or a workout. In this video from Duke University, Frank Stasio, an NPR moderator, interviews a Duke professor of history about Camus’s book.
Read More →ORPHÉE ET EURYDICE: Act III Duet and Camus, The Plague, part IV
Early in Part IV of Camus’s The Plague, Cottard and Tarrou head to the Municipal Opera House to see a performance of Gluck’s Orpheus. Here’s the duet mentioned in that scene, which we’ll read and discuss in class today. Here’s a little more about Gluck’s opera — a variation on “the underground rescue-mission [plot] in […]
Read More →Is Miranda a representation of Anne Porter?
From the very first sentences of reading the Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) the author, Anne Porter, grabs our attention by getting insight of the novel’s protagonist, Miranda. If I didn’t know that the novel was a fiction, I would assume that we are reading a real person’s notebook: the emotions, feelings, experiences of being sick are […]
Read More →♪~~Pale Horse, Pale Rider~~♫
Song and music played a peculiar role in the novel Pale Horse, Pale Rider. In fact the title of the book was first mentioned as the lyric of a song, “pale horse, pale rider done taken my lover away.” This brought my attention to the two songs presented in the novel, “Pale Horse, pale rider” […]
Read More →Plagued with Midterms
What happens periodically and causes panic, pain, suffering, and alienation? Of course, the answer is — Midterms! Much as midterms or exams in general have us, students, panicking about the upcoming testing, feeling the pain and suffering from the social pressure and holing up in our rooms in hopes to survive the dreadful epidemic, the […]
Read More →Checking in: plague and social contract
I had hoped to share a quote this morning from a book I read when I first began plotting the syllabus for this course: Barbara Fass Leavy’s To Blight with Plague. Here she contrasts Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider and Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year on the subject of social contract. I think this […]
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