What do millennia-old plagues have to do with the current COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode (recorded on May 11, 2022), Dr. Kristina Neumann sits down with Drs. Merle Eisenberg (Assistant Professor of History, Oklahoma State University) and Lee Mordechai (Senior Lecturer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), late antique & medieval historians and hosts of the podcast Infectious Historians. Now with over 100 episodes, this dynamic series engages past disease outbreaks and contemporary questions through a series of interviews with historians, scientists, and public policy experts. Drs. Eisenberg and Mordechai dissect their process and vision for the podcast, specifically how it serves as an interdisciplinary seminar and living archive for academic and public audiences alike. They discuss the bad historical comparisons for modern disease that often spread throughout our culture and the social responsibility of historians to correct these narratives. Most importantly, they emphasize the use of history to remind everyone that human beings matter in a pandemic.

Listen to Infectious Historians: https://infectioushistorians.com/.

Learn more about Dr. Mordechai: https://huji.academia.edu/LeeMordechai.

Learn more about Dr. Eisenberg: https://cas.okstate.edu/department_of_history/faculty_bios/eisenberg.html. 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph