Thread by @benmarwick

I just finished teaching a new undergrad class @UW called “Archaeology of Epidemics”, where students had the option to do a #scicomm unessay final project. I’m very proud of their work so here's a 🧵presenting their wonderful projects (includes 🖼️ of human remains):

Jodi, Juliet & Gina posted an amazing 13-part digital museum exhibit on material culture of the 1918 influenza pandemic, inspired by @metmuseum & @jcccw, check out their richly detailed posts here: instagram.com/1918fluarchy/

Elizabeth added carefully researched text to greatly expand the ‘archaeology’ section of the @wikipedia article on Kerameikos, a major ancient Athenian plague burial site: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerameiko…

Isa & Madeline designed beautiful, eye-catching posters for fictional movies with creative plots (& their reviews!) inspired by actual ancient plagues (Black Death, Justinian, & colonial period), inspired by @ArthistoryC & @RWRMovieReviews: twitter.com/ArcheologyFilms

Alejo was inspired by @Chaco_arch & did a deep dive on bioarchaeological evidence for the impact of diseases spread among Native American societies by Spanish colonisers in the 16th C

Darle wrote a thoroughly researched thread on the archaeology of the Black Death in Europe, he found some fascinating studies to share (it wasn’t the rats! in some Nordic countries, at least):

Baohan designed a visually compelling and detailed infographic summarising archaeological information about frailty from the East Smithfield plague cemetery in London, inspired by @CDCgov posters,

Emma researched & produced a high-quality video that carefully fact-checks some common myths about plague doctor masks (check out her huge list of works cited), inspired by @_PaolaBertucci's research:

Riley made a elegantly illustrated thread on the details of the archaeological evidence of the Athenian plague at Kerameikos, inspired by ​​@FlintDibble’s masterpieces:

Tyler made a video for TikTok exploring the impact of the Spanish flu on the paintings of Edvard Munch: tiktok.com/t/ZTdTR5MGn

We ended our "Archaeology of Epidemics" class on ‘Archaeology in/of COVID-19,’ reading perspectives & contemporary arch by @bobmuckle @CorneliusKalmar @akin_ogundiran @staceylcamp @kgdouglass @chirikure @sherr_spadefoot @ArchaeologistSP @wasteunearthed @JadeArchaeobot & others

All my course materials are #openaccess here: canvas.uw.edu/courses/1546206, based on the crowd-sourced "Archaeology of Epidemics" syllabus bit.ly/archaeology-of…, featuring work by @monicaMedHist @FlintDibble @petalonghurst @pathbodies @Iza_Romanowska etc.