Beatrix Hoffman (Northern Illinois University), “The Necropolitics of U.S. Pandemic Responses: Expendable Workers in 1918 and 2020” (Yale School of Medicine)

Event time: 
Monday, October 17, 2022 - 4:30pm
Location: 
Historical Medical Library (333 Cedar Street) See map
Event description: 
The Necropolitics of U.S. Pandemic Responses: Expendable Workers in 1918 and 2020
Beatrix Hoffman, PhD Professor of History, Northern Illinois University
Monday, October 17, 2022
4:30 PM
The Historical Medical Library, 333 Cedar Street
 
In both the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the Covid-19 pandemic today, low-wage workers and health care workers have suffered high rates of illness and death. This talk examines why respiratory pandemics have been so deadly for essential workers in the U.S., by focusing on how the intersection of labor and health policies designate certain groups as more expendable than others.
 
Beatrix Hoffman is professor in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University. She is the author of The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America.
 
Admission: 
Free