Spring 2024
Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Georgian
About This Course
Course Description
This course surveys the history of illness and medicine in America. This semester, our focus will be viral pandemics. We will explore them through biology, the developments of treatments and prevention, and their social and political dimensions. We will consider the roles and experiences of patients, families, medical professionals, researchers, activists, and politicians.
Depending on your circumstances, this class may meet one or more of the following requirements:
- History major/minor
- General humanities course
- General elective
Prerequisites
None, but previous success in a college course involving reading and writing is recommended.
Learning Outcomes
After successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Explain the basic biology of infectious diseases;
- Evaluate the response of medical professionals and politicians to pandemics;
- Discuss the ways in which people’s identities complicated their experiences of diseases and access to health care;
- Judge the legitimacy of different sources of information about pandemic diseases;
- Communicate your thoughts clearly in different written forms; and
- Communicate your thoughts through formal and informal oral presentations.
What You Need to Succeed in This Course
Course Materials: Required
While printed copies are strongly recommended, electronic copies are permitted, provided that you have a device to put them on you can bring to class that is not a cell phone (tablets, kindles, or laptops are fine). Books are listed in the order they are assigned.
Honigsbaum, Mark. The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris. NY: W.W. Norton, 2019. (Note: you must get the 2019 edition).
Daniel J. Wilson, Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Verghese, Abraham. My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
All other assigned materials are provided/linked to on Blackboard or will be handed out in class.
How You Will Be Graded
Weekly Reading Responses (20% total)
- 15 reading responses will be assigned.
- Each reading response will be based on the assigned readings for the week
- Missed, interrupted, late, or incorrectly submitted reading responses may not be made up for any reason, but the lowest two reading response grades will be dropped to accommodate any issues that arise, including technical problems. Your dropped response grades will not vanish—you will still see them in Blackboard—but they will not count towards your final grade.
- See Blackboard for assignment details.
Book Analysis Essays (20% total)
- 3 essays analyzing assigned books
Reacting to the Past: Congressional AIDS Hearing (30% total)
- Assignments and deadlines will vary by the character you play.
- Each participant will submit a reflection essay at the end of the unit—this is distinct from the overall course reflection essay.
- You will not be graded on whether your faction succeeds or not, but on your effort, engagement, and the quality of your work.
- Attendance and active engagement in all game play settings are required to pass this part of the course.
- Students who do not follow the rules regarding respectful, positive engagement in a Reacting to the Past Game will be removed from the game and will receive a zero for this section of the course.
- See Blackboard for assignment details.
Overall Course Reflection Essay (10% total)
- A low-stress substitute for a final exam
- Details tbd on Blackboard
Class Participation (20% total)
- To pass this class, your course conduct must be acceptable, regardless of your performance on your assignments. Students are required to prepare for, attend, and actively participate in all class meetings. Please arrive on time, turn off and put away electronic devices, and be respectful of your instructors and fellow. Behavior that harasses, discriminates against, or bullies anyone in our learning community or a guest speaker, inside or outside of class, in person or remotely, will not be tolerated and may result in removal from the course and the team. Behavior that in anyway threatens the physical or mental well-being of anyone will result in immediate removal from the course.
- Active participation in course meetings will contribute to your grade, excessive absences and/or attending class without participating will detract from it.
- Coming to class without your assigned materials will detract from your course grade.
Grading Scale
| Numeric grade | Letter grade |
| 90-100% | A |
| 85-89.99% | B+ |
| 80-84.99% | B |
| 75-79.99% | C+ |
| 70-74.99% | C |
| 65-69.99% | D+ |
| 60-64.99% | D |
| 0-59.99% | F |
| Student stopped engaging/attending class | FN |
Course Schedule
** All readings should be completed before class on Monday, the week they are listed.
** Any readings not in an assigned book can be found/linked to on Blackboard or will be provided in advance in class.
Week 1 (1/8-10)—Course Introduction and Introduction to Viruses
Read:
- Dorothy A. Crawford, “What are Viruses,” Viruses: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2014) (due Wednesday)
Assignments: None
Week 2 (1/15-17)—America’s First Pandemic: Smallpox
No class Monday (MLK Day)
Read:
Assignments: First reading response (due Wednesday, 9 am)
Week 3 (1/22-24)—Influenza, pt. 1
Read:
- The Blue Death, The Pandemic Century
Assignments: Reading response (due Monday, 9 am, this week and hereafter)
Week 4 (1/29-31)—Influenza, pt. 2
Read:
- James Derek Shidler, “A Tale of Two Cities: The 1918 Influenza,” Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 103, no. 2 (2010): 165-79.
- Experiences during the Epidemic at Cedar Branch (Logging) camp
- Random Recollections of Epidemic in Kimberley, South Africa
Assignments: Reading response
Week 5 (2/5-7)—Polio
Read:
- Living with Polio
Assignments:
- Reading response
Week 6 (2/12-14)—Measles
Read:
- Gabriella Capurro, et. al. “Measles, Moral Regulation and the Social Construction of Risk: Media Narratives of “Anti-Vaxxers” and the 2015 Disneyland Outbreak,” The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 43, no.1 (2018): 25-47.
- “On Immunity During a Measles Outbreak”
Assignments:
- Reading response
- Living with Polio analytical essay (due Monday 9 am, grace period ends Tuesday, 9 am)
Week 7 (2/19-21)—HIV: Understanding the Basics
Read:
- Aids in America, Aids in Africa, Pandemic Century
Assignments:
- Reading response
- Analytical essay on Polio (due Monday 9 am, grace period ends Tuesday, 9 am)
Week 8 (2/26-28)—HIV: Regional Impacts
Read:
- My Own Country
Assignments:
- Reading response
- Hand out role sheets
Week 9 (3/4-6)—Spring Break—relax and/or get ahead on your reading
Week 10 (3/11-13)—HIV: RTTP
Read: See game schedule
Assignments:
- Analytical essay on My Own Country (due Monday 9 am, grace period ends Tuesday, 9 am)
- See game schedule
Week 11 (3/18-20)—HIV: RTTP
Read: See game schedule
Assignments: See game schedule
Week 12 (3/25-27)—HIV: RTTP
Read: See game schedule
Assignments: See game schedule
Week 13 (4/1-3)—HIV: RTTP
Read: See game schedule
Assignments: See game schedule
Week 14 (4/8-10)—HIV: Into the Future and Around the World
Read:
- R.V. Subramanyam, “The Art of Reading a Journal Article: Methodically and Effectively,” Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology 17, Issue 1 (Jan.-Apr. 2013): 65-70.
- R.V. Subramanyam, “The Impact of HIV and Malaria Coinfection: What is Known and Suggested Venues for Further Study,” Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases (2009): 1-8.
- To Investigate Safety, Reactogencicity and Immunogenicity of VIR-1388 Compared with Placebo in Participants without HIV
Assignments: Reading response (remember, due Monday at 9 am)
Week 15 (4/15-17)—New Viruses Emerge
Read:
- Super Spreader; Ebola at the Border ; Z is for Zika, Pandemic Century
Assignments:
- Reading response
Week 16 (04/22)—Understanding changing information
Read:
- Disease X, Pandemic Century
- Find, read, and be prepared to explain to the class: 1) a reliable news article about COVID and 2) an unreliable/incorrect source of information about COVID.
Assignments:
- Reading response
Final Reflection essay due April 25, 9 am—note: this is a Thursday and there is no grace period.
For a how-to discussion of historical games in history classes, see Elizabeth Georgian’s accompanying article, “Reacting to the Past: Using Historical Games in College Classrooms.”
For the game schedule, see “Game Schedule—After a Long Battle: Congressional Response to the AIDS Epidemic, 1982–1985.”
Featured Image:
“Headlines from newspapers in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. at the time of the 1918 Spanish Flu,” Wikipedia.
Clio and the Contemporary 
