Plague Time Essay Contest

Plague Time

An Essay Contest Sponsored by the Department of History and Political Science

Topic:

We are living in profoundly uncertain times. The COVID-19 epidemic has disrupted all of our lives in ways that contemporary Westerners have never experienced. As college students and faculty, we have seen our semester abruptly transformed. But we are, in a sense, the lucky ones. All around us are citizens who have lost jobs or seen their businesses shut down, friends and neighbors who do not know how they will provide for themselves and their families in the months ahead. Nor do we yet know how high the numbers of the infected--or the dead--might rise. Our societies have come to a grinding halt. The most powerful and richest societies know to human history have been brought to a standstill by an enemy we cannot even see.

How should we think about this startling situation? What does it mean for us now, and what will it mean in the future? Students are invited to submit essays reflecting upon the significance--moral, political, social, or cultural--of the coronavirus epidemic. The topic is broad in order to solicit responses from a variety of perspectives: historical, political, economic, sociological, theological. Students may wish to engage in historical comparison, or policy analysis, or moral reflection. Any and all approaches are welcome. We seek essays that help us understand the present moment.

Eligibility and Guidelines:

1. The competition is open to students who have declared a major or minor in at least one of the following areas: History, Political Science, Augmented History, Humanities, or German Studies.

2. Submissions should be 3000-4000 words long and are due by midnight on April 30, 2020. They should be sent to peter.meilaender@houghton.edu.

3. Professors Meilaender and Esh will judge the submissions and select a winning essay, with the winner to be announced by May 15, 2020.

4. The winner will receive (a) public esteem and recognition, (b) an achievement to add to your resume, and (c) a small prize awarded by the department.

Comments

Dursli

Back to Gotthelf! I have already mentioned that I re-read Gotthelf's novella about the five young women who were ruined by drink. Last week I also re-read the second of his two early novellas tackling the problem of rural alcoholism, Dursli, der Brannteweinsäufer, oder Das heilige Weihnachtsabend ( Dursli the Brandy Drinker, or The Holy Christmas Eve ). This story also warns against the pubs springing up all over the Emmentaler countryside and their consequences for the rural poor. But it is also--even more than I had remembered, in fact--set in the broader political context of the times. Gotthelf begins the novella, in fact, before he ever even introduces the main characters, with about a 10-page discourse on the problematic reception in Switzerland of the ideas of the French Revolution. Its call for equality and freedom, he says, is naturally interpreted by the poorer classes not in terms of true Christian equality and freedom, but rather as a ...

Chinese Painting

The Wall Street Journal has been running some interesting articles under the heading of "The Staying Inside Guide," offering suggestions for artistic or cultural resources to view online during the pandemic. Yesterday I came across an interesting one entitled "Immersive Painted Worlds," on Chinese painting, about which I know virtually nothing. (The article may be behind a subscription firewall.) The article has an impressive number of links to various things online, and I watched the first couple, a pair of 15-minute videos from a former BBC program called "The Culture Show," which together form an episode on "The Art of Chinese Painting." I thought they were quite interesting. The first episode introduced me to the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang , which I had never heard of before. Located in the Gobi Desert, they contain a wealth of wall paintings and statues that are well over 1000 years old and were unknown to the outside world for cen...

Paris Cafes Open Again

Now this is good news: I just read in the Times that cafés in Paris are once again able to open for outdoor service . I've never even been to Paris, but that is still a welcome sign. I have written before--it probably deserves another reflection sometime--that this lockdown has not been a big deal for me. I worry about the college, and naturally I'm not thrilled about a salary cut forced by the college's losses. But in terms of my day-to-day life, the lockdown is more or less irrelevant. It makes grocery shopping more of a pain, and it keeps me away from my office, but otherwise interferes with little that I want to do. But the thing that I do miss is the opportunity to get to Europe once in a while. I had to cancel a planned trip to Germany with students over Easter. And this very morning, as it happens, I was supposed to arrive in Poland for a conference of the Austrian Studies Association. Alas, those trips were not to be. And ...

Plague Time

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