Humanities & Social Sciences

Knowing COVID-19

The pandemic and beyond

by Des Fitzgerald, Fred Cooper

Description

Knowing COVID-19 demonstrates how researchers in the humanities shone a light on some of the many hidden problems of COVID-19, in the very depths of the pandemic crisis. Drawing on eight COVID-19 research projects, the volume shows how humanities researchers, alongside colleagues in the clinical and life sciences, addressed some of the major critical unknowns about this new infectious disease - from the effects of racism to the risks of deploying shame; from how to design an effective instructional leaflet to how to communicate effectively to bus passengers. Across eight novel case studies, the book showcases how humanities research during a pandemic is not only about interpreting the crisis when it has safely passed, but how it can play a vital, collaborative and instrumental role as events are still unfolding.

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Reviews

Knowing COVID-19 shows how COVID-19 moved from being a mysterious and frightening novel infectious disease to something that was subject to an enormous amount of knowledge production. This volume focuses specifically on the role of humanities research within this vast epistemological engine. Across eight empirical chapters, the volumes traces the role of researchers in the humanities as they brought their expertise to bear on vital unknown questions in and around the pandemic. These included: how to make at-home diagnostic tests understandable; how to communicate the risks of public transport without stigmatising people who use that transport; what problems a suddenly touch-free world would create for deafblind people; what forms of racism and racialized experience were likely to be worsened by the pandemic; and how workers in places like museums were going to be able to deal with sudden closures and furlough schemes. Across eight chapters, the volume shows how humanities research does not simply comprise a set of tools for interpretation and meaning, to be applied when a crisis has safely passed; rather it shows how collaborative, experimental, and risky humanities research has been vital to actually resolving - and living through - the COVID-19 crisis.

Author Biography

Fred Cooper is Research Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter. Des Fitzgerald is Professor of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences at University College Cork.

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Manchester University Press

Manchester University Press is a leading UK publisher known for excellent research in the humanities and social sciences.

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date May 2024
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526178640 / 1526178648
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages232
  • ReadershipGeneral/trade; College/higher education; Professional and scholarly
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions216 X 138 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 5863
  • Reference Code15472

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