Faculty Advisor: Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University

Research Practicum Introduction

This project is designed to provide an overview of the role epidemics have played 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 program will study policies aimed at prevention, control, and reconstruction amid infectious diseases that are highly relevant in today’s times such as influenza, tuberculosis, SARS, Covid-19, and more. The program will focus on how different policy-makers, scientists, and local populations construct alternative narratives about epidemics at the global, national and local level, and how mankind can work together 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. Students will focus on individual topics and generate their own work products upon completion of the program.

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?

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort Size: 3-5 students

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

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