COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere. Months into the global pandemic, when many parts of the world have entered a second wave […]
Death, Distance, and the Digital World
My neighbor died as I was finishing this essay. We were two weeks into the stay-at-home order during the COVID-19 […]
To Let Die: COVID-19 and the Banalization of Evil
The course of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown a disturbing paradox as to how we deal with the disease. The […]
“A keen vision and feeling of all ordinary life”: Pandemic Journaling in the History Classroom
In January 2020, I showed students a clip of historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in the documentary A Midwife’s Tale. Ulrich […]
Makers of Living, Breathing History: The Material Culture of Homemade Facemasks
Ten days into shelter-in-place orders after my kids’ schools closed, my family and I gathered around the table, staring at […]
Talking Back to the NIH
In January 2018, Serena Williams went public about how she almost died after giving birth to her daughter. Williams has […]
From Alfred Fournier to Anthony Fauci: Targeting Public Health Messages to Teens
Communication about the causes, effects, and prevention of COVID-19 is plentiful in the United States. Press briefings and congressional testimony […]
Asymptomatic Lethality: Cooper, COVID-19, and the Potential for Black Death
Black people in the United States have long known that all white people, at any time, have the potential to […]
Absolutely Disgusting: Wet Markets, Stigma Theory, and Xenophobia
Since the initial descriptions of cases of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, there has been a persistent focus on “wet […]
Reconsidering How We Die
I arrived home ready to relax and watch The Crown after an intense work day, which included debriefing the family […]
