A Discussion on Albert Camus’ The Plague (La Peste)

Presented by The Trinity Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (TIIS) and

The Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life



Albert Camus’ The Plague describes what happens when the Bubonic Plague strikes the French colonial Algerian city of Oran. Published just after World War II, the novel is at once a careful examination of the impact of an epidemic on a modern urban community and a metaphorical account of the human condition generally.

As the world continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, four Trinity faculty members will discuss the novel from their respective fields of medical anthropology, 20th-century French literature, European philosophy, and Christian theology.

Shane Ewegen, Philosophy
Tamsin Jones, Religious Studies
Sara Kippur, Language and Culture Studies
James Trostle, Anthropology

Chaired by
Mark Silk, Director, Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life