by Jens Kruse

I recently had offered and started teaching, to a group of about 17 people, a course called “How to Sell Your Soul: Literary manifestations of the Faustian Bargain from the 16th Century to the Present.” Then the library closed, social distancing rules went into effect, etc. and I had to suspend that course until further notice.

In our current circumstances, I now hope to offer, by way of ZOOM, a course/reading group on “Pandemics in Literature.” We would be reading texts like:

Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year;” Mary Shelley’s novel “The Last Man;” Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death;” Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice;” Jack London’s “The Scarlet Plague”; Albert Camus’ “The Plague;” and Saramago’s “Blindness.”

We would be “meeting” once a week, probably on Thursdays from 11 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. or 1 p.m. depending on how the conversation goes.

If you would be interested please let me know by emailing me at jkruse@wellesley.edu. If I decide to go ahead with this offering I would then send you further details on how we will proceed.