Pandemics and Plagues

(3 Credits)

Throughout recorded history, pandemics and plagues have occupied an outsized significance in human culture. How are pandemics shaped by the intersections of pathogens, people, and place? What do plagues reveal about the fault lines and fractures in society? Can lessons from past pandemics – especially our recent experience with COVID-19 – help us better prepare for the next outbreak? Using global literature and film, we explore how people have narrated, interpreted, and imagined infectious diseases through time and across continents. Case studies include the Black Death, tuberculosis, cholera, the Spanish flu, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. Fieldwork with medical centers, public health resources, and disease-monitoring data initiatives in Abu Dhabi brings our study of pandemics into the present day by providing first-hand insights into the scope, monitoring, and prevention of infectious diseases.