Orfalea Center Thematic Research Cluster

Global Futures: Uncertainty, Displacement, Security

Mediations of COVID-19 Bibliography

The works below are science journalism texts (as well as a few texts from other fields) that address how different bodies of people (such as the general public, governments, NGOs, and scientific communities) came to know this most recent COVID-19 pandemic. The lenses through which these works portray the moments of initial contact with COVID-19 are varied. Many authors discuss the multiple mishandlings of the pandemic, and how those mishandlings reveal deeper systemic inequalities that ultimately made the pandemic much more difficult for disadvantaged communities. The works below also demonstrate a confluence of political, socio-cultural, and environmental factors that have mediated new scientific information on the virus to various effects. These works are significant not only for how they depict the struggle to (epistemologically, biologically, and politically) “capture” COVID-19, but also as epistemological and cultural objects themselves. This bibliography is a companion to the Pandemics Past Bibliography.

Branswell, Helen. “The months of magical thinking: As the coronavirus swept over China, some experts were in denial.” STAT. April 20, 2020. 

Branswell, Helen. “Understanding pandemics: What they mean, don’t mean, and what comes next with the coronavirus.” STAT. February 12, 2020. 

Branswell, Helen and Andrew Joseph. “The coronavirus questions that scientists are racing to answer.” STAT. January 28, 2020. 

Branswell, Helen. “It’s been sequenced. It’s spread across borders. Now the new pneumonia-causing virus needs a name.” STAT. January 23, 2020. 

Christakis, Nicholas A.. Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. New York : Little, Brown Spark, 2020. 

Fang, Fang. Wuhan Diary: Dispatches From a Quarantined City. Translated by Michael Berry. New York: HarperVia, 2020. 

Haupt, Jennifer, ed.. Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19. Delta, British Columbia and Point Roberts, Washington: Central Avenue Publishing, 2020. 

Hayes, Bill. How We Live Now: Scenes From the Pandemic. New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. 

Honigsbaum, Mark. The Pandemic Century: A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Books, 2020. 

Horton, Richard. The COVID-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again. Cambridge : Polity Press, 2020. 

Joseph, Andrew and Helen Branswell. “The short-term, middle-term, and long-term future of the coronavirus.” STAT. March 4, 2021. 

Kenny, Charles. The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease. New York and London: Scribner, 2021. 

Koley, Tapas Kumar and Monika Dhole. The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak. New York: Routledge, 2021. 

Mackenzie, Debora. COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One. New York and Boston: Hachette Books, 2020. 

Micklethwait, John and Adrian Wooldridge. The Wake-up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It. New York: HarperVia, 2020. 

Rabadan, Raul. Understanding Coronavirus. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 

Smith, Zadie. Intimations. New York: Penguin Books, 2020. 

Stavans, Ilan, ed.. And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers From Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic. New York: Restless Books, 2020. 

Sternfeld, Jon. Unprepared: America in the Time of Coronavirus. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. 

Yong, Ed. “How the Pandemic Defeated America.” The Atlantic. September 2020. 

Yong, Ed. “The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay.” The Atlantic. July 2020. 

Yong, Ed. “The Pandemic Doesn’t Have to Be This Confusing.” The Atlantic. April 2020. 

Yong, Ed. “How the Pandemic Will End.” The Atlantic. March 2020. 

Yong, Ed. “The New Coronavirus Is a Truly Modern Epidemic.” The Atlantic. February 2020. 

Zizek, Slavoj. Pandemic!: Covid-19 Shakes the World. Cambridge : Polity Press, 2020. 

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Mary Michael
Mary Michael
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