COVID Studies: A Reader (Critical Studies in Risk and Disaster) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1512829498 ISBN 13: 9781512829495

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026

Synopsis

A "state of the field" collection of essays that presents the latest research on the pandemic from a range of disciplines

COVID Studies is a "state of the field" collection of essays that presents the latest research on the pandemic from a range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, public policy, political science, history, and science and technology studies. Though varied in their methodologies, whether ethnography, data analysis, or archival research, the contributors together view COVID not as an isolated event with a discrete beginning and end, but rather as an ongoing crisis that resulted from and has shaped underlying social and political conditions.

As the essays demonstrate, COVID is a nested disaster: a deadly and debilitating virus woven through traumatically inadequate health systems in the United States and around the world. COVID is also a compound disaster, entangled with climatic disasters of land, air, and sea, and grinding against the tragedies of migration, war, and political dysfunction. Taking COVID and its lessons out of the museum of past disasters, where powerful people and institutions want it to remain, this volume puts it right back into the middle of our lives, where it belongs for now, and surely for a very long time to come.

Although no longer formally acknowledged as a pandemic by global health officials, COVID nevertheless is a continuing disaster due to its toll on life, health, economy, safety, and justice. Examining the pandemic as a process that was shaped by longer histories of what came before it and that continues to make new realities in the present, the contributors suggest that we are still researching and writing from inside the disaster.

Contributors: Joie Acosta, George Aumoithe, Anirban Kapil Baishya, Tanya Buhler Corbin, Jih-Fei Cheng, Moon Choi, Vivian Choi, Nishaant Choksi, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Sukanya Deogam, Alexa S. Dietrich, Kim Fortun, Alice Fothergill, Danya Glabau, Monica H. Green, Dolly Jørgensen, Dani Joslyn, Christine Keeves, Hyunah Keum, Scott Gabriel Knowles, Christos Lynteris, Tyesha Maddox, Rachel Margolis, Katherine A. Mason, Luke J. Matthews, Darshana Sreedhar Mini, Samantha Montano, Courtney Page-Tan, Hyeonbin Park, Lori Peek, Elisa Perego, Kalpesh Rathwa, Rashawn Ray, Monica Sanders, Amanda Savitt, Sarah Senk, Robert Soden, Jacob Steere-Williams, Cécile Stephanie Stehrenberger, Kathleen Tierney, Rodrigo Ugarte, Kristin Urquiza, Ashton M. Verdery, Carlos Villegas, Haowei Wang, Jacqueline Wernimont, Sarah S. Willen, Heather M. Wurtz, Myungji Yang, Carl A. Zimring.

About this title

About the Authors

Alexa S. Dietrich is an interdisciplinary environmental health scientist, trained in anthropology and epidemiology. She is the author of The Drug Company Next Door: Pollution, Jobs, and Community Health in Puerto Rico.

Scott Gabriel Knowles is Senior Director of Research at the Defense Industrial Base Institute and Research Professor in the Department of History at Northeastern University.

Rodrigo Ugarte is Editor at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), currently overseeing the Just Tech program's online platform. He edited an earlier version of this collection of pieces, which were published in the SSRC's online publication Items: Insights from the Social Sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1512829498
• ISBN 13: 9781512829495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Scott Gabriel Knowles, Alexa Dietrich, Rodrigo Ugarte