Research Seminar – Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live

Apollo’s Arrow offers a broad account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it swept through American society in 2020 and of how the pandemic will unfold, and ultimately end, in the coming years. Using up-to-the-moment information, and drawing on epidemiology, sociology, medicine, public health, history, virology, and other fields, it explores what it means to live in a time of plague — an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species. Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as new opportunities for cooperation, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that test our frayed collective culture. Apollo’s Arrow envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. His work is in the fields of network science, biosocial science, and behavior genetics. He directs the Human Nature Lab and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006; the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.