History of Science ON CALL: Anna Elsner on death and mourning during the coronavirus pandemic

COVID-19 has far reaching implications for practices around death and mourning. According to Anna Elsner, the coronavirus crisis stresses alarming developments that have gradually changed our cultures around death in modern society.

Knowledge is one of the most important resources for people dealing with crises and the humanities are mobilizing to address the COVID-19 pandemic. History of Science ON CALL is a project of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The short-format video interviews by MPIWG scholars, alumni, and collaborators highlight how historical perspectives are crucial to the understanding of contemporary crises.

Anna Magdalena Elsner, PhD is a Swiss National Science Foundation Marie Heim-Vögtlin research fellow at the University of Zurich, affiliated with the Institute of Romance Studies and the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, as well as an Associate Member of the Centre for Humanities and Health at King’s College London. Her current research project seeks to bring to light how palliative care has shaped autobiographical writing, documentary film, and photography in France since 1975. It aims to show how our understanding of contemporary French literature and culture shifts when we account for palliative care’s hidden but pervasive presence.