After two years of living through a global pandemic, Pandemic Perspectives dissects the response to SARS-CoV-2 and discusses what was learned and how this information could be applied in the future. A theme running throughout this film is the idea that the global pandemic offered a unique opportunity to pivot without the traditional inertia of past practice to radically address current social and economic issues. Those interviewed for this film, unfortunately, believe this was a lost opportunity for the global society.
Tackling this significant topic, this film offers short interviews with 32 academics, researchers, and politicians. While each of these interviews offers unique perspectives on the response to the current global pandemic, there are a number of themes that connect each of these unique voices making this a cohesive film. The primary themes include science as an ongoing process, science and public policy, academic and researcher engagement with public discourse, constructed authority and expertise, the flow of information through social media, and remote education.
While this documentary film offers thought-provoking discussions of the relevant themes, it falls short of looking to the future. Instead, it serves more like a retrospective of what happened during this period and questions what societal changes could have occurred.
Given the range of themes discussed, this film can easily be adapted for use in the classroom. Teachers and professors can easily incorporate single or multiple interviews into the classroom to spark conversation on the topics discussed. Specifically, this film can be integrated into a general science, political science, public policy, or current events course. Academic librarians will be particularly interested in the discussions focused on the flow of information and issues related to authority and expertise.
This content could easily support library education and information literacy classes focused on the current Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education as issues of Authority Is Constructed and Contextual, Information Creation as a Process, Information Has Value, Research as Inquiry, Scholarship as Conversation are all addressed.
A significant shortcoming is the lack of diversity in those selected to participate in this documentary film. The majority of those interviewed are older, western, white academics and politicians. Given the global impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a more diverse perspective would have added to the richness of the discussion and expanded the conversation.
Howard Burton (Director) acknowledges at the beginning of this documentary that the quality of the film suffered because of the process to shoot these interviews during a global pandemic. Each of the 32 interviews from across the globe was shot on a range of equipment using multiple crews and in some cases smartphones. While the visual quality of the film is not consistent across all 32 interviews, the value of this film is in the content of the discussion.
This film is recommended for any library or film collection that focuses on supporting science, political science, public policy, information literacy instruction, and library science. Recommended.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
Given the significance of the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic, Pandemic Perspectives is suitable for a range of film collections including public, K-12, and academic libraries.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Pandemic Perspectives supports a range of academic subjects including contemporary issues in the sciences, public policy, political science, and library and information science.
What type of classroom would this documentary resource be suitable for?
Given the broad range of themes discussed in this film, specific interviews from Pandemic Perspectives can easily be integrated into graduate, undergraduate, and high school classrooms.
What subjects or college majors would benefit from the content covered in this film?
Pandemic Perspectives is relevant to those studying or majoring in public policy, political science, biology, general science, library and information science, and the intersection of these disciplines.
In this brilliant and unsettling film Howard Burton takes us where others fear to go, probing deep into the causes of the causes, exposing the sloppiness of our thinking and making us smash up our tired, worn paradigms.” — Charles Foster, Professor of Law and Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford
Pandemic Perspectives presents a unique window into responses — institutional, personal, and communal — to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversations with people in different fields of endeavor turn into something more, when viewed together: a paean to human creativity and resilience, even in the midst of a devastating pandemic.” — Christopher Celenza, James B. Knapp Dean, Johns Hopkins University
The SARS-COV-2 pandemic stopped the world. This film tells us how we might restart it, and perhaps do better next time around. The interviews make the viewer think long and hard about how we got ourselves into this mess, what we can learn from it, and what it says about us as a species.” — Lorraine Daston, Director emerita Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Click here to check out the related book, Pandemic Perspectives: A filmmaker’s journey in 10 essays
Directly inspired by the award-winning writer, physician, and self-professed “biology watcher” Lewis Thomas, Howard Burton takes us on a thought-provoking tour of a wide range of key societal and scientific issues, from biology to politics to contemporary morality.
Click here to see a full list of the 32 experts who have participated in Pandemic Perspectives
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