Video Essays

Contagion, The Plague, & Our Collective State of Mind in the Age of COVID

Could we have been better prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic? Were the warning signs right in front of us? Albert Camus’ Nobel Prize winning novel "The Plague" ("La Peste") suggested, in 1947, it could happen at any time, and Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 movie "Contagion" showed how a pandemic might pan out. Looking at "Contagion" now, the similarities to events in 2020 are uncanny.