Epidemiology Narratives: How We Tell Stories About Disease

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Epidemiology represents the current paradigm for thinking about disease through exposure, transmission, spread, morbidity and mortality. These concepts are primarily narrativized through data visualizations, exemplified by John Hopkins University or the CDC. At odds with the historical, journalist, or literary narratives students might associate with the medical humanities, examining epidemiological data visualization as the prevailing narrative of disease enables us to ask new and pressing questions. This course is designed to help students think through data visualizations not as representations of abstract truth, but as objects constructed within distinct ideological frameworks which serve larger cultural narratives.