Join us in creating this repository of our uncertain moment. We are acting not just as historians, but as chroniclers, recorders, memoirists, image collectors. Contribute your experience and impressions of how CoVid19 has affected our lives, from the mundane to the extraordinary, including the ways things haven’t changed at all. Contribute text, images, video, tweets, texts, Facebook posts, Instagram or Snapchat memes, and screenshots of the news and emails–anything that speaks to paradoxes of the moment. Imagine, as we are, what future historian might need to write about and understand this historical moment.
The site title was inspired by Daniel Defoe’s novel of that name. First published in March 1722 the novel, A Journal of the Plague Year, tells story of one man’s experiences of the year 1665, in which the bubonic plague shook London.
A Journal of the Plague Year was initiated by Catherine O’Donnell, Richard Amesbury, and Mark Tebeau in the School for Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. It is curated by Mark Tebeau, Tom Beazley, and Erin Craft at ASU. Professor Larry Cebula (Eastern Washington) and Professor Amy Tyson (Depaul) will be collecting and curating with their class. We welcome your involvement as a curator, contributor, or social media promoter.