Putting Coronavirus in Context: A History of Disease and Epidemics | National Humanities Center

Humanities in Class: Webinar Series

Putting Coronavirus in Context: A History of Disease and Epidemics

Diseases; Pandemics; Epidemics; News; History of Medicine

Mari Webel (Assistant Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh)

March 4, 2020

In the 21st century, many challenges to public health—such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, or disparities in maternal mortality rates—transcend national boundaries and trigger international responses. Matters of health and illness play a key role in how we understand our place in an interconnected world. In this webinar, historian Mari Webel explains how past epidemics, ranging from medieval outbreaks of bubonic plague to modern epidemics of ebola virus disease, hold valuable lessons for how we can understand the current novel coronavirus outbreak, as well as global and national responses to it.


Subjects

Medicine / History / Diseases / Pandemics / Epidemics / News / History of Medicine /