Month: November 2024

For the seventh Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Paul Skäbe (Universität Leipzig). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 14 November at the normal time (1600 CET). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

Historical discussions of African Americans’ experience of the 1918 influenza pandemic frequently revolve around the epidemiological data that emerged from this event. A persistent historical narrative has been that Black Americans fared relatively better compared to white Americans – a narrative that is as surprising as it is counterintuitive, since racialized segregation and consistent discrimination in medical care produced truly dismal health indicators during the early 20th century. Throughout the pandemic years, a multitude of medical studies appeared in the most prominent scientific journals of the time which would not only shape contemporary understandings of the not-yet-identified virus, but also pattern influenza knowledge for years to come. Significantly, these epidemiological discourses centrally revolved around questions of racialized difference. In my presentation, I will try to grapple with the epidemiological data and share my perspective as cultural historian on it, arguing that we are dealing with fundamentally racialized epidemiologies,organized by a black/white taxonomy of race. They largely emerged from racially segregated military base camps, considered by contemporary researchers as ideal laboratory conditions to study the human body and disease, but have also had a lasting effect on the historical understanding of the 1918 pandemic.

About the Speaker

Paul Skäbe is a research fellow at the LeipzigLab “Global Health” and the Research Center Global Dynamics (both Leipzig University),where he is currently working on his dissertation with the title “Responsibilization, Racialized Space, and the Great Influenza Pandemic in the United States.” His project focuses on Black Americans’ history during the pandemic, investigating the confluence of racialized discourses and epidemiology, the work of Black health care professionals in pandemic relief,and the daily lived experience of Black Americans at the intersection of segregation and public health. The PhD project is part of the DFG-funded research project “Pandemic Space: Understanding Quarantine and Responsibilization in Times of Corona.”

For the sixth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Andrea Tilstra (University of Oxford). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 7 November at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

The immediate, direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States population are substantial. Millions of people were affected by the pandemic: many died, others did not give birth, and still others could not migrate. Research that has examined these individual phenomena is important, but fragmented. The disruption of mortality, fertility, and migration jointly affected U.S. population counts and, consequently, future population structure. We use data from the United Nations World Population Prospects and the cohort component projection method to isolate the effect of the pandemic on U.S. population estimates until 2060. If the pandemic had not occurred, we project that the population of the U.S. would have 2.1 million (0.63%) more people in 2025, and 1.7 million (0.44%) more people in 2060. Pandemic-induced migration changes are projected to have a larger long-term effect on future population size than mortality, despite comparable short-term effects.

About the Speaker

Andrea Tilstra is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science. She is based in the Departments of Population Health and Sociology and at Nuffield College. Her work spans quantitative medical sociology and social demography, and seeks to better understand the underlying social determinants of population health.