Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year and Covid-19 : a tale of two pandemics / Stuart Sim.

Unlimited

Authorized users

Can lend chapters, not whole ebooks

Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year and Covid-19 : a tale of two pandemics / Stuart Sim.

9783031312861 electronic book
3031312864 electronic book
9783031312854
3031312856

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

English

1 online resource (vii, 79 pages)

10.1007/978-3-031-31286-1 doi

PR3404.J63 S56 2023

823/.509

Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year has taken on a new relevance with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through an exploration of two chronologically distant societies in crisis, this study compares the attitudes, beliefs, and conduct of the public portrayed in the book and those in our own embattled Covid era. There are interesting similarities to note, with equivalents to the Covid-deniers and the anti-vaxxers to be found in Defoe's bleak vision of London in the 1660s as it descends into a state of chaos. JPY offers us some uncomfortable truths about human nature that resonate strongly in our own times, revealing how responding to a pandemic can bring out both the best and the worst in our character as we face up to a world where the old certainties no longer seem to apply. Pandemics expose the fault-lines in ideology, putting the social contract at risk - the question they pose is whether we can continue to rely on our current socio-political set-up or whether it requires a radical rethink. There is a pressing need for more debate on this issue, and this project is designed to make a case for that. Stuart Sim is a retired Professor of Critical Theory at Northumbria University, UK, having previously worked for the Open University and the University of Sunderland. He is widely published in the fields of critical theory, literary studies and philosophy, and is a Fellow of the English Association.

Includes index.

Access limited to authorized users.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed May 22, 2023).

Print version: 9783031312854

Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources