Do you miss our Food for Thought lectures, UHPers? I certainly do. Well we’re doing a virtual one! We won’t be serving lunch (it would be quite difficult), but nonetheless we’ll be hosting Professor Carolyn Arena for a talk titled “”From Smallpox to Covid-19: Histories of Native Americans and Epidemics” on October 30 at 12pm. Feel free to sign up below, but drop-ins are also welcome!
You can join the talk here, or call in with meeting ID 923 9770 1202 and password 316939.
Talk description:
Epidemic diseases have ravaged Indigenous communities since Columbus’s arrival to the Americas. In the 1760s, at least one British military officer suggested weaponizing smallpox against Native Americans. Indigenous communities have survived intentional and unintentional plagues in the past to face common diseases among all Americans today: diabetes, heart disease, and now, coronavirus. As with Black and Latinx populations, racial and economic disparities have made this present epidemic more lethal for Indigenous communities. What can history teach us about susceptibilities, inequalities, and resilience of Native peoples in the face of epidemics?
