Dr. Philippa Koch, Assistant Professor at Missouri State’s Religious Studies Department, will participate in the “Religion & Pandemics, Vaccines, and Public Policy” panel at Indiana University (virtual) on 17 December 2020. She will be joined by Dr. Ryan J. Cobb (University of Georgia) and Cohosts Richard Gunderman and Krista Hoffmann-Longtin (both of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis).

Dr. Koch’s research interest, the history of religion in America, focuses on colonial America and the Atlantic world, and her upcoming book, Persistent Providence: Healing Body and Soul in Early America, as well as her courses here at MSU (Body and Health in American Religions, Sexuality and Religion), dovetail with the panel’s discussions of Religion & American Culture, specifically the organization’s current topic, Religion & Pandemics.

Dr. Cobb, a scholar of racial stratification in the U.S., is currently researching racial identification as a multidimensional social construct and how this relates to biological and mortality risks.

The panel will look at the history of pandemics and vaccine protocols, discuss the role that religious organizations and leaders played during historic moments of earlier pandemics, and how to deal with the ethical issues during a global health crisis, such as how to distribute a vaccine.

For more information on the panel, how to register, and to see previous panels in the “Religion &” series, please visit the Religion & American Culture’s website: https://raac.iupui.edu/religion-pandemics-vaccines-and-public-policy/.