From Black Death to COVID-19, pandemics have always pushed people to honor death and celebrate life

Halloween, with its mix of the macabre and the playful, provides a moment to reflect on how closely life and death are interwoven – especially in 2021.

Nükhet Varlik, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University - Newark • conversation
Oct. 26, 2021 • ~9 min

How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone

As ready as you are to be done with COVID-19, it's not going anywhere soon. A historian of disease describes how once a pathogen emerges, it's usually here to stay.

Nükhet Varlik, Associate Professor of History, University of South Carolina • conversation
Oct. 14, 2020 • ~9 min

What the archaeological record reveals about epidemics throughout history – and the human response to them

People have lived with infectious disease throughout the millennia, with culture and biology influencing each other. Archaeologists decode the stories told by bones and what accompanies them.

Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland • conversation
June 15, 2020 • ~11 min

Coronavirus and the Black Death: spread of misinformation and xenophobia shows we haven't learned from our past

Misinformation and "fake news" was also widespread during the Black Death.

Rachel Clamp, PhD Candidate in History, Durham University • conversation
March 5, 2020 • ~6 min

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