The Malaise of Illness: Reading The Magic Mountain During COVID
This course was available in the past and may be presented again as part of the Open Enrollment curriculum.
The Magic Mountain tells the story of an “ordinary young man” whose visit to a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium ends up lasting seven years. A work that beautifully explores themes of illness, death, time, and love, Thomas Mann’s classic was a response to his wife’s experience at a similar sanatorium and a metaphor for European life after World War I. We will slowly read and discuss the book, along with short selections from the history of science and medicine, to explore what Mann’s work tells us about our own time of lingering illness and social upheaval.
Required text:
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (Vintage Books, 1995), trans. John E. Woods. ISBN: 9780679772873
Notes
Online Registration closes December 29 at 5:00 pm CT.