“Indeed Strangely Altered”: Critical Teaching after the Plague Year(s)

Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year documents the cultural changes that the plague brings about in London. The COVID‐19 pandemic similarly brought about dramatic cultural changes, and it changed the way that faculty taught. This article argues that faculty were forced to rethink what they teach, why they teach, and how they teach, and English departments and departments across higher education can serve students better if they retain the lessons that learned in the post‐pandemic context.