Black screens, vanishing faces. Not at work, working from home. Computers instead of classrooms. These are the first days of quarantine. We are living in quarantine. Yes, I remember. That’s why we have time.
This is our last class of the semester. I tell them how dearly I am going to miss them, my dear students. They are finishing their term now. The final exam is next week. They’ll be off for the summer. Insha Allah , God-willing, I
will see them again in the fall. Ma’assalaamah, go in peace.
As I sign off, I recall the article that inspired my lecture. A journalist had just interviewed a Yale historian named Frank Snowden last month. They discussed Professor Snowden’s book, Epidemics in Society: From the Black Death to the Present. I found a very interesting paragraph. Infectious disease can change the physical landscape itself. Mr. Snowden notes that when Napoleon III rebuilt Paris in the mid-19th century, one of his objectives was to protect against cholera: ‘It was this idea of making broad boulevards, where the sun and light could disperse the miasma.’ Cholera also prompted expansions of regulatory power over the ‘construction of houses, how they had to be built, the cleanliness standards.’ 18 If respiratory viruses become a more persistent feature of life in the West, changes to public transportation and zoning could also be implemented based on our understanding of science – which, like Napoleon’s, is sure to be built upon or superseded in later years. 19 My mind races… 18 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-epidemics-change-civilizations-11585350405 19 Ibid.
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