*Recorded* 2021 Joan Palevsky Lecture in Classics | Plagues in Antiquity

Watch the recorded Palevsky Lecture here.

The 2021 Annual Joan Palevsky Lecture was a Departmental Roundtable Panel that featured a discussion among members of the UCLA Classics Department of plagues in antiquity, including the plagues of 5th century Athens, Antonine Rome and Justinian. In addition to discussing medical, literary, historical, and archaeological sources, the panel considered the nature of the different ancient pathogens, the social disorder and disruptions to authority and truth caused by ancient pandemics, theories of causation, immunity, and treatment, as well as the problem of collecting and burying the dead. We hope that this discussion was able to shed light on many of the questions we have been wrestling with during the COVID pandemic.