Curriculum Studies in the Age of Covid-19 engages “unbearable story-telling” in order to document, give testimony to, and attempt to understand the psycho-social and socio-political dimensions of living through the unfolding pandemic, particularly in the context of education.

Introduction: Metaphors of the Desert: A Curriculum of Crisis – Clinical Narratives and Stultification – Speculative Fabulation and Unbearable Stories – Jacques Derrida’s Concepts: Metaphors for Unbearable Stories – Thomas Merton’s Crisis of The Unspeakable – The Unbearable Stories of Terry Tempest Williams, Joan Didion and Derrick Jensen – The Unbearable Stories of Anton Boisen, Louise DeSalvo and John Gunther – Albert Camus’ Relevance for Unbearable Stories of the Covid Pandemic – Michel Serres’ Relevance for Unbearable Stories of the Covid Pandemic – References – Index.

“As a hospital chaplain in the era of Covid-19, Dr. Marla Morris provides care to the souls of patients, paying tribute to their untold stories inevitably marked by inexplicable suffering and sadness. Because such stories cannot be captured in the sterile language of the clinical chart, she turns to such writers as Terry Tempest Williams, John Gunther, and Louise DeSalvo to gain insights into the profound and contradictory experiences of illness she witnesses. But Dr. Morris is not only a chaplain. She is also a curriculum theorist who enacts currere, a way of viewing the world of Covid in deeply personal ways through her relationships with patients, their families, and their caregivers; and in larger sociopolitical, theological, and spiritual spheres. And there’s more: she is also a philosopher who turns to the theoretical frameworks of Derrida, Camus, and Serres among others to explore how their relevance illuminates the pandemic in ways not examined before. Curriculum Studies in the Age of Covid-19: Stories of the Unbearable is brilliant, far-reaching scholarship marked by the sensitivity and passion of Dr. Morris, a work that ultimately helps us all honor what she calls in these pages ‘the unbearable stories’ of Covid-19.” —Delese Wear, PhD, Professor Emerita, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University