The Mother of All Pandemics: The State of Black Death Research in the Era of COVID-19
A Medieval Academy of America Webinar
Recorded Friday 15 May 2020

Moderators: Winston Black (Independent Scholar) and Lori Jones (Univ. of Ottawa)
Respondent: Monica Green (Independent Scholar)

Panelists:
Seeta Chaganti (Univ. of California, Davis)
Gérard Chouin (William & Mary)
Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech)
Robert Hymes (Columbia Univ.)
Nükhet Varlik (Rutgers Univ. & Univ. of South Carolina)

Prior to 2020, when most people heard the word "pandemic," they thought of the Black Death. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has made us all newly aware of the severe consequences of pandemic events, it is necessary to lay a foundation for transhistorical dialogue about disease emergence, the role of the state in epidemic emergencies, and climate factors, among many other questions.

This panel brings together leading researchers on the Second Plague Pandemic. We will discuss why work in genetics has transformed the kinds of questions that historians and researchers in allied fields (bioarchaeology, genetics, climate history, literary studies, and art history) can now ask about this pandemic. For many of these questions, we're still dealing only with hypotheses and fragmentary evidence. But the very fact that researchers from across these many disciplines now recognize the urgency of talking together signals that the field has made an important shift.

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