Harvard's Brandt will offer thoughts on COVID-19 from an historical perspective

10/20/20 ASHLAND, Ohio – Harvard University Professor Allan Brandt will discuss the COVID-19 pandemic as part of “No Magic Bullet: COVID-19 in Historical Perspective,” a webinar to be presented Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m.

To access the Zoom link for this free presentation, contact kpool@ashland.edu.

Brandt’s presentation, which also will include what the history of other epidemics tell us about the course of COVID-19 and how we can respond to it, is co-sponsored by the AU Honors Program, the Department of Biology and Toxicology, the AU Environmental Science Program and the AU National Science Foundation Science Scholars Program.

The Amalie Moses Kass professor of the History of Medicine and the History of Science at Harvard, Brandt holds a joint appointment between the faculty of Arts and Science and Harvard Medical School and served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2008 to 2012. 

His work focuses on social and ethical aspects of health, disease, medical practices, and global health in the 20th century.  Brandt is the author of No Magic Bullet:  A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880; and co-editor of Morality and Health (1997).  He has written on the social history of epidemic disease; the history of public health and health policy; and the history of human experimentation. 

Brandt’s book on the social and cultural history of cigarette smoking in the U.S., The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, received the Bancroft Prize from Columbia University in 2008 and the Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine in 2011.  He has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2015 was awarded the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. 

He is currently writing about the history and ethics of stigma and its impact on patients and health outcomes.

Ashland University is a mid-sized, private university conveniently located a short distance from Akron, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Ashland University (www.ashland.edu) values the individual student and offers a unique educational experience that combines the challenge of strong, applied academic programs with a faculty and staff who build nurturing relationships with their students.###