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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented attention to the work of historians of medicine and public health. Journalists from around the world have asked these scholars to provide "lessons from history" as nations and governments have tried to contain and control the pandemic. Providing neat, helpful lessons has been challenging because historians’ answers are often far from simple. In this talk, Evelynn Hammonds will discuss the difficulties of offering historical examples that can capture the complex forces that shape all epidemics.

Evelynn Hammonds is chair of the Department of the History of Science and professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard. She is the author of Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880–1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and has published articles on the history of disease, race and science, African American feminism, African American women and the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, and analyses of gender and race in science and medicine. Her current work focuses on the intersection of scientific, medical, and socio-political concepts of race in the United States.

Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics as a part of its 2019-21 theme of inquiry, Science, Policy, and the Public. Cosponsored by the UO Black Studies and Minor Program, History Department, and Global Health Minor Program.