{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,24]],"date-time":"2025-11-24T16:24:41Z","timestamp":1764001481324,"version":"3.45.0"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"4","funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000155","name":"Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["435-2020-0036"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["435-2020-0036"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000155","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,15]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>While the assertion, \u2018no one really wants to talk about COVID anymore\u2019, has become a common refrain, cultural evidence suggests otherwise. Rather, cultural materials indicate not only a sustained interest in epidemic and pandemic experiences in the past but also continuing interest in our own pandemic era. However, this interest is often registered through gestures and brief mentions rather than explicit and sustained plague narratives. This paper considers these trends, especially in Gothic works, a literary tradition rooted in hyperbolic representations of threats that also represents disease on frank terms consistent with current medical knowledge. Pandemics appear in Gothic writing two centuries ago through brief references that suggest the daily experience of danger.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Pandemic-era television is following the same strategies. Like \u2018fevers\u2019 and \u2018plagues\u2019 in the early 1800s, COVID-19 can be raised briefly and often indirectly. There is also attention to other aspects of the pandemic, including isolation and misinformation. In the popular Gothic series,\n                    <jats:italic>Interview with the Vampire<\/jats:italic>\n                    (2022\u2013), \u2018plague\u2019 and misinformation are captured on terms drawn from earlier Gothic writing and intertwined to reflect on the misinformation of the COVID-19 era.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2024-013193","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,10]],"date-time":"2025-06-10T06:08:52Z","timestamp":1749535732000},"page":"424-427","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Pandemics and the gothic, then and now: a hum in the background"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"51","author":[{"given":"Julia M","family":"Wright","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"English, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.1","unstructured":"@PlaguePoems . 2023. \u201cI Have Heard It Said\u201d. Available from: https:\/\/x.com\/PlaguePoems\/status\/1623804211489042432"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Abbott S . 2016. Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the Twenty-First Century. Edinburgh University Press.","DOI":"10.3366\/edinburgh\/9780748694907.001.0001"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.3","unstructured":"\u201cAccount of Diseases in London\u201d. 1797. Vol. 4. Monthly Magazine"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.4","unstructured":"Arendt H . 1967. \u201cTruth and Politics\u201d. In Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. Penguin 2006."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1139\/facets-2023-0197"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.6","unstructured":"Bewell A . 1999. Romanticism and Colonial Disease. Johns Hopkins University Press."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.7","unstructured":"Burke E . 1757. Edited by Phillips A. . A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Oxford University Press 1998."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.8","unstructured":"Ceniceroz J. , and Munson S. . 2024 \u2018Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death.\u2019 Episode 2, Season 2. Interview with the Vampire. Created by Rolin Jones. AMC"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.9","unstructured":"Crook N. , and Guiton D. . 1986. Shelley\u2019s Venomed Melody. Cambridge University Press."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.10","unstructured":"Ferguson S . 1880. \u201cThe Morning\u2019s Hinges\u201d. In Irish Literature, 1750-1900: An Anthology, edited by Wright JM. . Wiley-Blackwell 2008."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.11","unstructured":"First Report from the Select Committee on the State of Disease, and Condition of the Labouring Poor, in Ireland. 1819. House of Commons. Available from: https:\/\/wellcomecollection.org\/works\/v8cwfxub\/items?canvas=5"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fisch A. A . 1993. \u201cPlaguing Politics: AIDS, Deconstruction, and The Last Man\u201d. In The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond \u201cFrankenstein, edited by Fisch AA. , Mellor AK. , and Schor EH. . Oxford University Press.","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780195077407.001.0001"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.13","first-page":"23","article-title":"\u201cWordsworth\u2019s \u2018We Are Seven\u2019 and Crabbe\u2019s The Parish Register: Poetry and Anti-Census\u201d","volume":"48","author":"Fogel","year":"2009","journal-title":"Studies in Romanticism"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(21)00869-2"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.15","unstructured":"Hanna K. , and Jones R. . 2024 \u2018I Could Not Prevent It.\u2019 Episode 7, Season 2. Interview with the Vampire. Created by Rolin Jones. AMC"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.16","unstructured":"Hood A . 2024 \u201cRomancing Mister Bridgerton.\" Episode 6, Season 3. Bridgerton. Created by Chris Van Dusen. Shondaland"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hunt E. M . 2024. The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Postapocalyptic Imagination. University of Pennsylvania Press.","DOI":"10.9783\/9780812298611"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.18","unstructured":"IMDB (Internet Movie Database) . 2024. \u201cInterview with the Vampire\u201d. Available from: https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt3960394\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.19","unstructured":"Jones R . et al. 2022 \u201cIn Throes of Increasing Wonder.\" Episode 1, Season 1. Interview with the Vampire, Created by Rolin Jones. AMC"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.20","unstructured":"Jones R. , and Muscovitch H. . 2022 \u201cIs My Very Nature That of a Devil.\u201d Episode 3, Season 1. Interview with the Vampire. Created by Rolin Jones. AMC"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.21","unstructured":"Kelly \u00ad . 1816. The Matron of Erin. Simpkin and Marshall (Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Gale)."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1353\/elh.1998.0026"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.23","unstructured":"LeFanu J. S . 1839. \u201cA Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family\u201d. In Irish Literature, 1750-1900: An Anthology, edited by Wright JM. . Wiley-Blackwell, 2008."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.24","unstructured":"LeFanu J. S . 1872. Edited by Tracy R. . In a Glass Darkly. Oxford University Press 1999."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.25","unstructured":"Lewis M. G . 1796. Edited by MacDonald D. L. and Scherf K. . The Monk. Broadview Press 2003."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.26","unstructured":"Matheson R . 1954. I Am Legend. Tor Publishing 1995.."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.27","unstructured":"Matheson R. , and Leicester W. F. . 1964 The Last Man on Earth. Associated Producers"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.28","unstructured":"Muscovitch H. , and Shane M. . 2024 \u201cLike the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light.\" Episode 6, Season 2. Interview with the Vampire. Created by Rolin Jones. AMC"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3366\/gothic.2022.0141"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1353\/elh.2022.0024"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.31","unstructured":"Prater E . 2023. \u201cNo One Really Wants to Talk about COVID Anymore,\u2019 the WHO\u2019s Pandemic Lead Laments\u201d. Fortune. Available from: https:\/\/fortune.com\/well\/2023\/02\/08\/new-coronavirus-covid-recombinant-possible-who-world-health-organization-admits-viral-evolution-covid-pandemic-omicron-zoonotic-transmission-animal-reservoir"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.32","unstructured":"Radcliffe A . 1794. Edited by Dobr\u00e9e B. . The Mysteries of Udolpho. Oxford University Press."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2979\/victorianstudies.62.3.06"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/jvcult\/vcac017"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.35","first-page":"378","article-title":"\u201cAbstract of the Return of Mortality in 117 Districts of England for the Quarter Ending 31st December 1847\u201d","volume":"69","year":"1848","journal-title":"The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal"},{"issue":"11","key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1614","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jiph.2021.09.003","article-title":"\u201cThe Epidemic Failure Cycle Hypothesis: Towards Understanding the Global Community\u2019s Recent Failures in Responding to an Epidemic\u201d","volume":"14","author":"Richter","year":"2021","journal-title":"Journal of Infection and Public Health"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.37","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/ehr.12904"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.38","unstructured":"Shelley M. W . 1818. Edited by Joseph M. K. . Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. Oxford University Press 1986."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.39","unstructured":"Shelley P. B . 1821. \u201cAdonais\u201d. In Shelley\u2019s Poetry and Prose, edited by Reiman DH. and Fraistat N. , 2nd ed. Norton:"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.40","unstructured":"Sontag S . 1978. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.41","unstructured":"Sontag S . 1989. AIDS and Its Metaphors. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.42","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2933018"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.43","unstructured":"Vargo L . 2020. \u201cMary Shelley\u2019s The Last Man and Covid 19\u201d. In Fifteen Eighty Four. Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press. https:\/\/cambridgeblog.org\/2020\/05\/mary-shelleys-the-last-man-and-covid-19."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.44","unstructured":"Wordsworth W . 1798. \u201cWe Are Seven\u201d. In William Wordsworth, edited by Gill S. . Oxford University Press 1989."},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wright J. M . 2013. \u201cA Wicked Whisper\u2019: Censorship, Affect, and Coleridge\u2019s \u2018The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\u201d. In In The Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope, edited by Faflak Joel and Haslam Jason . University of Toronto Press.","DOI":"10.3138\/9781442690011-005"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wright J. M . 2016. Men with Stakes: Masculinity and the Gothic in US Television. Manchester University Press.","DOI":"10.7228\/manchester\/9780719097706.001.0001"},{"key":"2025112408200653000_51.4.424.47","unstructured":"Yost G . 2023. Silo. AMC."}],"container-title":["Medical Humanities"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/syndication.highwire.org\/content\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-013193","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,24]],"date-time":"2025-11-24T16:21:39Z","timestamp":1764001299000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-013193"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,14]]},"references-count":47,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,24]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,12]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1136\/medhum-2024-013193"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-013193","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-215X","1473-4265"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"1468-215X"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1473-4265"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,14]]}}}