Pandemics and Intellectual Discourse: Art, Literature, & Film

Drama illuminating one doctor's pioneering efforts to protect the people of Manchester from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Directed by Justin Hardy, 2009.

2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic. The film tells the story of two coalitions - ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) - whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition.Directed by David France, 2012.

We meet individuals from marginalized communities who describe what it was like to live through the 1918 flu pandemic. Their experiences raise questions about the pandemic: why did it kill so many people? Why were so many of the dead young adults? Where did this lethal flu come from? How can we keep a pandemic like that from occurring again? The film follows the search for answers from an expedition to Alaska in 1951 to collect tissue from bodies buried in the permafrost, to the scientists and epidemiologists working on the same questions today. It explains the relevance of research into the 1918 pandemic to the threat of current and future flu pandemics. Directed by Lisa Laden, 2010.

Executive produced by Spike Jonze, this (RED), HBO & Anonymous Content 30-minute documentary follows the story of HIV positive people in Africa who in as few as 40 days undergo a remarkable transformation thanks to access to treatment that costs around 40 cents a day. Directed by Lance Bangs, 2010.

When infertility threatens mankind with extinction and the last child born has perished, a disillusioned bureaucrat becomes the unlikely champion in the fight for the survival of Earth's population. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, 2006. (Gordon Library Film Collections PN1995.9 S87 C455 2007 dvd)

A city is ravaged by an epidemic of 'white blindness.' Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital where societal norms quickly breaks down. Criminals and the physically powerful prey upon the weak, hoarding the meager food rations and committing horrific acts. Inside the hospital is one eyewitness to the nightmare. Directed by Fernando Meirelles, 2008. (Gordon Library Film Collections: PN1997.2 B556 2009 dvd)

A young man's passion for a seemingly unattainable woman lasts over five decades as he tries to woo her from a loveless marriage. Directed by Mike Newell, 2007. (Gordon Library Film Collections PQ8180.17 A73 A813 2007 dvd)

The Social Science Research Council asked prominent scholars to select a visual artifact of this time that will help future researchers understand the Covid-19 crisis.

Barker, S. (2004). Poussin, plague, and early modern medicine. The Art Bulletin, 86(4), 659. https://doi.org/10.2307/4134458

Marshall, L. (1994). Manipulating the sacred: Image and plague in renaissance italy *. Renaissance Quarterly, 47(3), 485–532. https://doi.org/10.2307/2863019