First-Year Seminar: Anthropological Perspectives on Covid-19

3 units

This class explores the evolving relationships between humans, animals, and the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. In examining COVID-19 and other zoonotic outbreaks, this course emphasizes that a complex mix of ecological, political, economic, and social factors shape infectious disease emergence and epidemiology. Drawing on popular media, medico-scientific scholarship, and ethnographic case studies, we will explore topics including zoonotic jumping and bioinsecurity, environmental degradation and animal agriculture, unequal burdens of risk and disease, politics and public health policy debates, and the lived experience of front-line healthcare, illness, and quarantine. In so doing, we consider the role anthropological research and perspectives might play in understanding and ameliorating global health problems in diverse contexts around the world.