The Colonial City and the Question of Borders: Albert Camus's Allegory of Oran

Pestilence in Planning: Why Camus is a Beacon for Our Times

“…The Plague is set in a fictionalised adaptation of the Algerian coastal city of Oran. Since its publication, The Plague has prompted extensive significant scholarship and criticism: Some of this productive work has sought to expand on The Plague's relevance by exploring links with the context in which it was written (see, for example, Carroll, 2001;Stephanson, 1987) and to apply its insights across a range of disciplines including the health sector (Tuffour & Payne, 2017). During 2020, much of the discussion of The Plague has explored what the work can tell us about the trajectory of disease, associated social dynamics and personal ethics (Schillinger, 2020;Sharpe, 2020).…”

“…1. Some scholars have seen The Plague as an allegory for fascism and authoritarian politics, an interpretation disputed by De Botton (2020), although Camus' involvement with politics included the French resistance in World War Two and opposition to the injustices of French oppression in Algeria (Carroll, 2001). 2.…”

Camus and Aristotle on the Art Community and its Errors

“…In reviews near the time of its first publication, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Barthes all considered The Plague to be escaping from history and the real people who cause evil. 2 Among them see, e.g.,O'Brien 1970, Said 1993, Margerrison 2008; or less rancorously and with more balance,Carroll 2001, Lorcin 2014 …”

In This Moment, We Are All Dr. Rieux: COVID-19, Existential Anxiety, and the Absurd Hero

“…not only to honor the historical resistance, but also to support anti-totalitarian movements struggling” in the present (Kałuża, 2017, p. 96). Scholars have interpreted the novel as an allegory of fascism (Cruickshank, 1957; Finel-Honigman, 1978), of resistance to fascism (Bernard, 1967), of French colonialism in Algeria (Carroll, 2001), of social hygiene (Lund, 2011), and of death and dying (Abram, 1973). Across each of these interpretations, a set of common themes jump out of the text regarding the place of the therapist today living under the tyranny of global pandemic—the absurdity of human existence and meaningless suffering.…”