Author: Nükhet Varlik

Nükhet Varlık is a historian of the Ottoman Empire interested in disease, medicine and public health. Her first book, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600, is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. She is translating and editing a number of sources pertaining to the history of Ottoman medicine, and is involved in multidisciplinary research projects that incorporate perspectives from molecular genetics (ancient DNA research in particular), bioarchaeology, disease ecology and climate science into historical inquiry.

From Black Death to COVID-19, Pandemics Push People to Honor Death and Celebrate Life

Even though death is symbolically very much present in Halloween, it’s also a time to celebrate life. The holiday draws from mixed emotions that resonate even more than usual during the COVID-19 era.

Looking at the ways survivors of past pandemics tried to celebrate the triumph of life amid widespread death can add context to the present-day experience. Consider the Black Death—the mother of all pandemics.