OUTREACH
Institute of European Studies <- Back
ORIAS Summer Teacher's Institute. "Pestilence and Public Health."
7/28/2008 - 8/1/2008Participants: 44
University of California-Berkeley
Presentations on West European topics at this event included: Ring Around the Rosy: The Plague of Athens Was No Childs Play, by Richard Hoffman, Professor of History at San Francisco State University; Dances of Death: from the Black Death to 1721, by Jo N. Hays, Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago; and Plague and Pleasure in Boccaccios Decameron, by Steven Botterill, Professor of Italian Studies at UCB. A highlight in the weeks program was provided by UC Berkeley Scandinavian Studies Professor Linda Rugg, who delivered a presentation entitled Illness as Metaphor: The Presence of the Plague and Death in Ingmar Bergmans The Seventh Seal. In this well-received talk Professor Rugg explored connections between Bergman's use of medieval plague images, cancer in the present day, and the work of Susan Sontag, and in so doing raised challenging and broadly applicable questions about the ways diverse societies and cultures define disease.