Project General Information: For this final project, you will create either an informative or thesis-driven project related to plague and pandemic literature. You may choose what kind of project you’d like to do. Examples include but are not limited to the following: a detailed slide show (i.e., Power Point, Google Slides, etc.); a pamphlet; a traditional essay or report; a performance piece (i.e., record yourself doing a dramatic reading or act out one of our texts with information delivered in a director’s commentary; transform one of our texts into a song informed by research; etc.); a speech (on video or narrated); a collage or other visual artwork; a website you design yourself; a podcast; or some other idea that is not included here (please get approval from Dr. Powell).
Literary Text Requirements: You are required to include at least one of the works from our syllabus in your project, but you may also include related texts or films in addition. You may choose a text about which you previously wrote this semester if you like.
Learning Objectives for the Project (same as Course Outcomes on the syllabus)
Explain the diversity of human experience across time and place in literature about or related to plagues, pandemics, and epidemics.
Situate works of plague and pandemic literature within historical, social, economic, scientific, and other contexts.
Control conventions of language, mechanics, and MLA format in academic writing.
Exhibit research skills in writing.
Length Requirement for Final Draft: 1300 – 2000 words, PLUS a Works Cited (Works Cited is not included in the word-count requirement)
Format Requirement: MLA 9th Edition
Research Requirements:
You should use both primary and secondary sources. A primary source is the work of literature or film you are analyzing. A secondary source is a source related to the primary source, like a scholarly analysis of a literary work, a government report or historic document about a time period or type of plague or pandemic, biographical information about an author, or a source that offers other contextual information.
At least one primary source is required (one of the literary works we have read this semester).
At least two reputable, credible secondary sources are required, and at least one should be a scholarly, peer-reviewed source.
Use the CSN Library, .edu, or .gov sites to ensure your sources are credible.
If you believe your project necessitates sources other than these, we can negotiate if you have good reasons. I also encourage you to include visual or media sources in the paper.
Pro Tip: As you research, keep a research journal, or compose an annotated bibliography; this will help you research and write more efficiently, and it will also help you avoid plagiarism.
Audience: Other undergraduate-level college students who may have not read the texts about which you are writing.
Additional Resources and Topic Ideas Listed Below
How to Contact a CSN Librarian:
Contact our embedded librarian directly by clicking the CSN Library tab in our Canvas course menu or by messaging them in the Canvas inbox
Go to the CSN Library “Ask Us” pages for email, video conferencing, live chat, and text options: https://library.csn.edu/ask Links to an external site.
Go to a CSN Library to speak to a Reference Librarian: https://library.csn.edu/hours Links to an external site.
Tips for Research & Keeping Track:
https://library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/15-steps Links to an external site.
https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Started-With-a-Research-Project Links to an external site.
https://libguides.wustl.edu/research Links to an external site.
https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/engrtechcomm/chapter/strategies-for-conducting-research/ Links to an external site.
https://guides.library.ucla.edu/bruin-success/4-2 Links to an external site.
https://libguides.rio.edu/c.php?g=620382&p=4320145 Links to an external site.
https://apus.libanswers.com/faq/109420 Links to an external site.
https://www.beyondplagiarism.sweetland.lsa.umich.edu/for-students/finding-sources/keeping-track-of-sources/ Links to an external site.
How to Write Literary Analysis:
https://www.bucks.edu/media/bcccmedialibrary/pdf/HOWTOWRITEALITERARYANALYSISESSAY_10.15.07_001.pdf Links to an external site.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/teacher_and_tutor_resources/teaching_resources/writing_a_literary_analysis_presentation.html Links to an external site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V__y74UvzYo Links to an external site.
General Advice on Writing about Literature:
https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/types-of-writing/literature/ Links to an external site.
https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/bg_writing_english.pdf Links to an external site.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/index.html Links to an external site.
Writing about Literature.pptxActions
Sample Topics: These are just for example purposes; you need not choose any of these topics. I encourage you to come up with your own topics for this paper, but you may use one of these if you want to. When you meet with me about the project, we will talk about your topic, and we can discuss research, organization, or anything else you’d like about the final paper. Message me in Canvas to set up a video meeting or phone conversation.
You could examine the themes of masculinity and/or femininity in one of the texts we have read where gender/sexuality is a prevalent issue, like The Andromeda Strain or Love in the Time of Cholera. This paper might examine how the text presents gender and/or sexuality, using research from Gender Studies and History, and discuss ways in which the plague or pandemic presented in the text highlight, illuminate, exaggerate, or otherwise inform those gender roles or sexuality.
You could research and write about how Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone was influenced by Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, analyzing the ways in which Preston adapted Crichton’s fictional characterization, narrative structure, diction, etc. to a book of non-fiction.
You could research the Science Fiction genre, the presence/significance of plagues/pandemics in Sci-Fi, and analyze one of the Science Fiction texts, like “Speech Sounds,” that we read this semester fits within the genre, how it adheres to and/or violates the generic expectations of character, plot, theme, etc.
You could write about how colonization and/or globalization have driven and exacerbated plagues and pandemics, like how the global economy, colonization in Asia, and trade with China spurred Shen Fever in Severance and the ways in which SARS and H1N1 influenced Ling Ma’s novel.
You could research one of the pandemics or plagues we have read about this semester, in Health Sciences or another scientific discipline, and then analyze how that plague or pandemic is presented in one of the literary works. This paper might both inform the readers about the way that particular plague or pandemic works (how it’s transmitted; how it works in the body; etc.) and examine how realistically it is presented in the fictional text. For instance, you could research the Spanish Flu, looking particularly at transmission, survival rates, and hallucinations brought on by high fevers, and analyze how Porter’s novella, Pale Horse, Pale Rider presents that flu and its effects.
You could research the ways in which economics, gender, and education affect populations suffering from a plague or pandemic. In the video we watched about AIDS, for example, one of the repeat points made by the interviewees is how the poor, especially poor women, bear the brunt of the suffering in plagues and pandemics, like AIDS. Preston also mentions AIDS in his book, though he is more interested in geography and zoology than in economics or gender.
You could do a comparative project that compares COVID-19 with a historical plague or pandemic, like the Bubonic Plague in Nashe or Defoe or like Shen Fever in Ling Ma’s novel. This paper could look at human behavior, social norms, economics, health sciences and medical knowledge (or lack of knowledge), legal protocols, or any other relevant issue.