Tianyuan Huang// Truth be told, I did not see this coming. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought I would have been conducting dissertation research in Tokyo for nearly half a year by now; but I am still in New York City awaiting the lifting of travel bans, having already rescheduled flight tickets for the third…
Tag: COVID-19
Seasonal Time, Variant Time: Pandemic Futurity
Julia Dauer // Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have speculated about whether cases will ebb and flow in seasonal patterns. Just this week, NPR released a podcast episode about the anticipated intersections of flu and COVID-19 in the U.S. this winter. The episode encapsulates the collision between two conflicting ways of conceptualizing illness: seasonal time…
Vaccine Hesitancy and Pregnancy: How the Medical Humanities Can Help
Dr. Sam Allen Wright // Four days before I saw a faint second line on a pregnancy test, I got my first COVID vaccine. I knew that I could be pregnant when I got the shot. In fact, that’s why I wanted the vaccine so badly; I knew that COVID caused increased risks for pregnant…
Ode on a Greek Letter
April Sharp // The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet is currently in the spotlight, but for all the wrong reasons. On November 26th, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern and gave it the label Omicron. The use of the Greek alphabet to label variants…
Collapsing Work-Life Balance in Covid-19
Amala Poli // The beep of the phone.. thudding heart, fingers clicking away. “Is everything okay?” Yes, you say. “I just had to reply to this one email. All done now!” You set it aside, eyes flickering in the direction of the screen just a little.
Ri k’ak’a tzij: Kaqchikel Maya Neologisms in Response to COVID-19
Tiffany D. Creegan Miller, PhD // Though Guatemala is a relatively small country in northern Central America, it boasts of a robust multilingual and multicultural diversity. In addition to Spanish (the official language), Guatemala is also the home to 22 Maya languages, and two other Indigenous languages: Garífuna and Xinca. Within this ethnolinguistic landscape, Kaqchikel…
COVID-19 as a New Structural Barrier to Equitable Health among Expectant Black Women in the US
Katey E. Mari// COVID-19 has created yet another structural barrier for equitable access to healthcare and health among Black pregnant women in the US, particularly in areas affected by racial residential segregation. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions surrounding the social determinants of health as they relate to COVID-19 morbidity and mortality trends…
Notes on Grim
Emily Waples// Last week, we reached a point in this pandemic that has been some eighteen months in the making: more Americans have now died of COVID-19 than of the 1918-1919 flu. I’ve been dreading the moment less for the fact of it than for the fanfare, anticipating the precise terms in which I knew…
Bodily Loss in Illness: The Phenomenology of Influenza in Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
Avril Tynan // It is an uncanny experience to read Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was in 2021. Written in 2013 by renowned Icelandic author Sjón and translated into English by Victoria Cribb in 2016, the short novel tells the story of a pandemic that surges across Europe and devastates the isolated Icelandic capital. The…
A first time teaching African medical crisis from afar: Uncomfortable global north-south juxtapositions
Renée van der Wiel // I have been in the global north, what is for me a relatively exotic place, while designing a social anthropology course. The course is about healthcare professionals and institutions across sub-Saharan Africa. In the past I taught students in my home city, Johannesburg, in buildings literally only a few kilometers…
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