Category: Contemporary Issues

Of Plagues and Papers: COVID-19, the Media, and the Construction of American Disease History

In their attempts to make sense of the novel coronavirus, media outlets frequently invoke the past, comparing COVID-19 to the Black Death, the "Great Influenza" of 1918-19, and other historical disease outbreaks. The act of connecting "then" and "now" has produced two countervailing historical narratives: one that emphasizes medical progress over time, and another that highlights America's failure to learn the lessons of past pandemics.

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HUMN 222: Black Humanities: The New York Times 1619 Project

HUMN 222 takes on The New York Times challenge to reframe American history, to consider the possibility that the origin of this country can be traced to 1619, the year that marks the arrival of the first Africans (from the land that would become Angola) to the land that would become America in all its defining contradictions.

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Suffrage Pie, Honest Watergate Salad, and (Im)Peach-Mint Crumb Cake: Food, Recipes, and Humor as Political Commentary

Although social media enables political food puns to go viral, they are rooted in a long tradition of journalists, activists, and average citizens combining food and humor to poke fun at political opponents. This article examines three such moment: (Im)Peach-Mint Crumb Cake and President Trump, The Watergate Cookbook and President Nixon, and Suffrage Pie For the Doubting Husband from the women's suffrage movement.

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