For those looking for an educational way to spend Wednesday evening, join Texas A&M University’s Global Health Humanities webinar to reflect on the important strides that the liberal arts have made during a global crisis. This webinar is called “The Role of Humanities in a Time of Pandemic” and offers insights from grant-supported projects in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to explore diverse experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Zoom event is on April 21, from 4 to 5 p.m. (CST). Co-sponsored by the Gates Foundation’s Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), “The Role of Humanities in a Time of Pandemic” will feature Dr. Srividya “Srivi” Ramasubramanian. Dr. Srivi’s topic is “The ‘Quarantined Across Borders’ Project: Immigrant Voices, Shared Sense-Making, and Collective Healing in a Pandemic.”
Dr. Srivi will present her project, featuring Diasporic Digital Diaries about the COVID-19 pandemic called Quarantined Across Borders (QAB), which is Media Rise’s project. Media Rise is a nonprofit organization that promotes meaningful media and mindful media consumption. Dr. Srivi is Media Rise’s executive director.
QAB is a project of essays about the experiences of immigrant, diasporic, and borderland communities during the lockdown issued due to COVID-19. The project represents Dr. Srivi’s creative-intellectual response to the COVID-19 pandemic. QAB aspires to bridge gaps across borders and to build communities of care through shared digital storytelling.
Launched in June 2020, the QAB collection features 84 short stories from residents in 30 countries to highlight the intersectionality of varied experiences of different races, genders, socioeconomic stations, citizenship statuses and professions. A set of essays from this collection have also been published as an open-access special online multimedia issue.
(From left: Dr. Quentin Eichbaum, Dr. Jessica Howell, Charles-Antoine Barbeau (M.A.) and Dr. Srivi)
Other than Dr. Srivi, three other scholars from around the globe are presenting during the webinar. The participants of the showcase will present their research since the pandemic began. Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Medical Center Quentin Eichbaum will speak on "Conceptualizing Health Humanities Programs in Low Resource Settings (in Africa).” English professor at Texas A&M Jessica Howell is set to talk about "The Stories of Epidemics: Oral Histories and Ebola.” Finally, Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the Université de Sherbrooke Charles-Antoine Barbeau, is going to educate listeners on "Holding a Mirror up to Society: Empathy and Social Resilience in Pandemic Times.”
Join online, on April 21, to participate in a cross-disciplinary conversation as these scholars present on the lived experience of patients, community members and health practitioners during a pandemic. Please sign up to receive the evening webinar registration information.