Skepticism of Masks, Vaccinations Isn’t New: Ph.D. Candidate’s Research on 19th-Century Britain Provides Lessons for Today

AY20 Humanities Center Dissertation Fellow, Haejoo Kim

Article by Brandon Dyer

Haejoo Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English, is currently researching and writing her dissertation “Medical Liberty and Alternative Health Practices in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” She is exploring 19th-century British anti-vaccination periodicals and pamphlets to examine the rhetoric. “When the pandemic first hit in early spring, I was thinking I should have been working on epidemics and contagious diseases instead of alternative health practices,” Haejoo says. “And then people started to protest against mask wearing, and vaccine refusal resurfaced with full force..."

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