My current research project, “The Sword Outside, the Plague Within: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Europe” is the first cultural history of the 1918 flu pandemic in Europe, and the first translocal, comparative history of this horrific event.

The project draws on over 1,000 flu survivors’ testimonies, gathered from across ten European countries, to compare how Europeans interpreted the pandemic’s cause and spread and how they interpreted the event within the context of WWI. My methodology rests on archival research in a searchable database and interactive map of the survivors that I created with the help of seven student researchers at Penn State and the University of Freiburg between 2018 and 2021.

Beyond its scope, sources, and methodology, the project is significant for its findings and arguments. For instance, my research shows that the flu was largely interpreted as a local event, which enhanced social stability and inhibited blaming minorities and foreigners. I also demonstrate that a large swath of Europeans believed the flu was actually an apocalyptic visitation of pneumonic plague and that it was spread via “bad air” emanating from the Western Front’s unburied war dead. Moreover, unlike WWI, the pandemic ended individual lives, but it did not significantly alter collective ways of life, which made it easier to accept (and forget) than the war. Consequently, I argue that unlike WWI or COVID-19, survivors of the 1918 pandemic did not see their society’s aspirations or failures mirrored in the flu, so they did not remember it as a collective event, despite collective effects on society.

For a discussion of my findings, check out my interview on the “Infectious Historians” podcast (episode #114, August 25, 2023) available on Apple Podcasts, the Infectious Historians Website, and Spotify. You can also view a demonstration of my influenza survivors’ map and my influenza survivors’ database on YouTube.