EP7: Don’t Mention the Pandemic

Clare and Yves are joined by medical historian and public history advocate extraordinaire, Dr Peter Hobbins. In 2020 Peter’s expertise surrounding the influenza pandemic of 1918 came into play as the world grappled with the Covid-19 crisis. What can we learn from the past? Is history really cyclical, or more parallel? The group discusses an archival submarine, misgivings with a digital archive of data, and documenting the pandemic in real time (#covidstreetarchive).

University of Sydney staff page: https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/peter-hobbins.html

Twitter page: https://twitter.com/history2wheeler

Hobbins on ABC Australian Story about Spanish Flu: https://www.abc.net.au/austory/spanish-flu/12915302

Peter Hobbins on ABC RN: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/vaccines-and-viruses:-a-history-of-pandemics/12745772

Peter Hobbins on Sky News: https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/coronavirus/parallels-drawn-between-1919-spanish-flu-and-coronavirus/video/ed77e53a70456e4712d2a66bbe93f188

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Articles about archiving the pandemic:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/may/13/history-in-the-making-how-libraries-are-capturing-the-pandemic-for-posterity

https://theconversation.com/archiving-the-pandemic-coronavirus-lost-and-found-documents-how-we-cope-with-catastrophe-137685

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03554-0

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1550190620986550