Humanities and Social Science Program

Examining the Socio-Psychological Consequences After Epidemics Throughout History

Faculty Advisor: Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University

Research Program Introduction

This research program is designed to provide an overview of epidemics' role in the history of humanity from the post-pandemic perspective. In past times, epidemics provoked class hatred, blaming of ‘the other,’ or the persecution of the diseases’ victims. When diseases were mysterious, without cures or preventive measures, they more readily provoked ‘sinister connotations.’ More specifically, these connotations pertained to the Black Death, the Great Pox at the end of the 16th century, cholera riots in the 1830s, AIDS, and other diseases. Although common in past times, hatred and violence cannot be relegated to a time when diseases were mysterious; in fact, modernity was the great incubator of the disease-hate nexus.

This program aims to investigate striking descriptions of post-epidemic times, from the fifth-century BCE Plague of Athens to the Ebola outbreak in 2016. In doing so, students will examine the epidemics’ socio-psychological consequences through time with respect to their remarkable power to unite and divide societies across gender, class, ethnicity, and religious lines. 

Students in this research program will study policies aimed at preventing, controlling, and reconstructing infectious diseases that are highly relevant today, such as influenza, tuberculosis, SARS, COVID-19, and more. The program will focus on how different policymakers, scientists, and local populations construct alternative narratives about epidemics at the global, national, and regional levels and how mankind can cooperate to recover from these tragic events.

Students will also learn general and subject-specific research and academic writing methods used in universities and scholarly publications. They will focus on individual topics and generate their own work products upon program completion.

Possible Topics For Final Project:

  • Why are infectious diseases linked to evil?

  • Why do diseases stimulate self-sacrifice and compassion in people?

  • How to create effective response policies to epidemics during and after their spread

  • How to evaluate evidence and decide who to trust during and after disease outbreaks

  • What happened after the outbreak of infectious diseases such as the Black Death, smallpox, cholera, and AIDS?

  • Other professor-approved topics in this subject area that you are interested in

Program Details

  • Cohort size: 3 to 5 students

  • Workload: Around 4 to 5 hours per week (including class and homework time)

  • Target students: 9 to 12th graders interested in History, Public Health, Anthropology, Policy, Sociology, and/or interdisciplinary social sciences.