BIOMS 1310 - Parasites as Literary Protagonists - Mind Control, Emasculation, and Egg Sacks

Winter, Summer. 1 credit. Letter grades only.

The course will be presented as 13 video captured lectures (about 45 minutes each) that are designed to immediately follow the student’s having listened to a recorded reading or video selection from a movie representing the fictional theme based upon the facts that will follow.

D. Bowman, A. Lucio-Forster.

This course will introduce students to the world of pathogens, mainly parasitic animals, affecting host behavior. Various works of science fiction, horror, fantasy, and thrillers, will be drawn from to introduce the subject of host manipulation and control. Discussed will be parasites modifying host behaviors to: protect themselves, change their host’s attractiveness to a mate, make the host more attractive to predators, make the host easier to catch by predators, fooling the host into taking care of the parasite’s young instead of its own, changing the gender of the host to make it the appropriate parent for its young, etc. Scientific examples of the manipulations used in literature will be presented in relation to the stories presented.

Outcome 1: Explore host-parasite relationships at the organismal and population level.

Outcome 2: Integrate scientific knowledge with popular media.

Outcome 3: Apply basic biology to creative story presentation.

Outcome 4: Develop an appreciation of the marked diversity of life forms on planet earth along with their manifest interactions.