Pandemic Politics and the Viral Underclass

Join the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities in welcoming Steven Thrasher, Ph.D., author of award-winning book The Viral Underclass.

Using the HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 and monkeypox epidemics, Thrasher will explain how pandemics are not driven by biology alone. Drawing upon a decade of research as a journalist and public health scholar, he will explain how avoiding or ending any pandemic requires undoing the harms of ongoing social vectors like racism, ableism and even the law.

Thrasher is the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University. His articles are regularly published in The New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, the Nation, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Daily Beast. He is also a former researcher for Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.”