PLAGUE, PESTILENCE, PANDEMIC. Keywords for a Cultural Epidemiology of the Present
PLAGUE, PESTILENCE, PANDEMIC. Keywords for a Cultural Epidemiology of the Present
Author(s): Djelal KadirSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: aetiology; anthropogenic; viral; catastrophe; iconoclasm; epidemic; pandemic; pandemonium; symptomatology; contagion; war; truth; prevarication; facticity; immunity; impunity; simulation; dissimulatio
Summary/Abstract: The COVID-19 era presents yet another instance of the symbiosisbetween viral pandemic and pestilence in the political cultureof the moment. Through a brief reprise of plague-riven history datingfrom antiquity, this article explores the symptoms of the currentepidemic and offers a number of keywords that characterize the currentmaladies as viral plague and as political pestilence. The couplingof the viral and the political dates from the third century Roman emperorMarcus Aurelius who took the measure of the plague and political corruptionof Rome during his reign. The lexical compendium offered here couldconstitute a study in cultural epidemiology that defines the exhibitedsymptoms of pandemic disease in its concurrent medical and socioculturalmanifestations.
Journal: Review of International American Studies
- Issue Year: 16/2023
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 67-88
- Page Count: 22
- Language: English