Plagues and Pandemics: Lessons from the past

In 2020, CoVid19 stopped the world, closing borders, workplaces, and everyday activities, as humanity attempted to reckon with a disease that threatened the lives of a large part of the population. Yet, if pandemics of this scale are rare, CoVid19 is not unique in world history. Indeed, managing plagues and pandemics has been a critical part of the human experience from the medieval to the modern day. This course explores this history using a series of case studies from the Black Death in the fourteenth century to Aids in the late twentieth century. As well as introducing students to some significant plagues and pandemics, this course explores emotional responses to plague, such as the anxieties of managing disease, fear and scapegoating of those thought to be responsible, the loneliness of isolation, and the grief response to mass death. If pandemics stop the world, they can also enable remarkable social, economic, cultural and scientific change in their aftermath. This course highlights the significant ways humans have sought to transform the world following plagues and pandemics, and how these events have been significant markers of historical change. The key aim of the course is not only to help students better understand their current experiences, but to prepare them for the opportunities that will arise as we move forward into a new world after this latest pandemic.