Robin Tang

Course: History of western epidemics

It seems as if every few months, the world is seized by sensational headlines of some new outbreak—most recently the Zika virus. But as soon as the media stops covering the stories, the diseases are quickly forgotten unless we are somehow personally affected. I wanted to memorialize some of the most important epidemics of our past.

“The History of Western Epidemics” was one of my favorite classes at Yale. I organized my course notes to create a program I could share with the Highbrow community. I owe most of the content for the course to Professor Frank Snowden.