Legacies of Plague in Literature, Theory and Film

This book is an account of the history and continuation of plague as a potent metaphor since the disease ceased to be an epidemic threat in Western Europe, engaging with twentieth-century critiques of fascism, anti-Semitic rhetoric, the Oedipal legacy of psychoanalysis and its reception, and film spectatorship and the zombie genre. Legacies of Plague in Literature, Theory and Film is an account of the history and continuation of plague as a potent metaphor since the disease ceased to be an epidemic threat in Western Europe. Moving across narrative, theatre, political discourse, psychoanalysis and film theory, the book engages with twentieth-century critiques of fascism, anti-Semitic rhetoric, the Oedipal legacy of psychoanalysis and its reception, film spectatorship and the zombie genre. Plague's legacies lie in our dreams, our fears and in language itself. They reveal the fragility of the social bond; the fascination of diseased spectacle; and the literal and metaphorical power of pestilence. Legacies of Plague highlights the way in which structures of ritual surrounding the contagious and what is tabo, while they may have been practically supplanted, are still operative under new guises in recent and present discourse and can be used to label and stigmatise in powerful and disturbing ways--Résumé de l'éditeur Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-15 Writing Plague: Defoe and Camus....Pages 16-43 The Politics of Plague Theatre: Artaud, Capek and Camus....Pages 44-72 Oedipus the Pharmakos and the Psychoanalytic Plague....Pages 73-96 Dreaming Plague and Plaguing Dreams: The Teachings of Psychoanalysis....Pages 97-114 Plague, Jews and Fascist Anti-Semites: ‘The Great Incurable Malady’....Pages 115-140 Screening Plague Images/Plaguing Screen Images: von Trier’s Epidemic and Hypnosis....Pages 141-162 Plague, Zombies and the Hypnotic Relation: Romero and After....Pages 163-184 Back Matter....Pages 185-226