The project, created and directed by Prof. Kirsten Ostherr, collects worldwide humanities projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to argue the translational value of the Medical Humanities. The website appeals to different users and is instrumental to the creation of a network of exchanges of theoretical and practical knowledge. The team hopes to elicit a conversation on the changing role of the Humanities and provoke reflection on what the latter can do more or better to enlighten the path of policymakers and support responders in times of crisis. An additional project is a historiographical assessment that examines the literature on pandemics that argues that the U.S. government has historically weaponized epidemics and diseases to affirm its sovereignty and facilitate its imperial projects. That rhetoric persists in a post-colonial world to enforce racial, ethnic, and gender assumptions at home and abroad. The project is foundational to a course that Barbieri – MD, MA, and a current Ph.D. student in American History – hopes to offer soon to undergraduate students.
The project is translational because it is based on observations that are turned into interventions. The additional project has also translational potential because it will inform and form students across different disciplines and who will follow different career paths.
Explore the Humanities pathways that led to this project
Houston, Texas, United States