Digital Site License & DVD

This documentary provides a critical examination of a wide range of key societal issues illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic through the prism of 32 international experts in immunology, epidemiology, biomedics, medicine, evolutionary biology, psychology, neuroscience, history, education, law, economics, business and more.

The film features short, thought-provoking clips which can be easily integrated into courses.

NOTA BENE: The enhanced 2023 version is exclusively available through Ideas Roadshow and on DVD.

2022 / Documentary / 92 minutes / Closed Captioning in English / Directed by academic filmmaker Howard Burton

DVD educational version with PPR – UPC 810134942318: available through MovieZyng and through all library vendors mentioned below.
DVD without PPR – UPC 810072544391: available on Amazon and through different library vendors, including Midwest Tape, Library Bound and Baker & Taylor.
Digital Site License: please contact [email protected]
Accompanying book: Pandemic Perspectives: A filmmaker’s journey in 10 essays by Howard Burton.

Relevant for courses in:
Health Policy / Health Information Systems / Public Policy / Political Science / General Science / History of Science / Biology / Immunology / Business / Environmental Studies / Philosophy / Library & Information Science 

“…a unique document that will be a resource for future students of the pandemic and reactions to it for many years.“—Martin Jay, Ehrman Professor of European History Emeritus, UC Berkeley

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

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

“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

“..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.

Featured participants (32)

  • Elizabeth Anderson, Max Shaye Professor of Public Philosophy, University of Michigan
  • Ann-Sophie Barwich, Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine, Indiana University Bloomington
  • Roy Baumeister, Professor of Psychology, University of Queensland
  • Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies, UCLA
  • Christopher Celenza, James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
  • Patricia Churchland, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, UC San Diego
  • Lorraine Daston, Director Emerita of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
  • John Dunn, Emeritus Professor of Political Thought, University of Cambridge
  • John Dupré, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Egenis, University of Exeter
  • Charles Foster, Professor of Law and Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford
  • Richard Frank, Director of the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy; Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Professor of Health Economics at Harvard Medical School
  • Michael Frazer, Associate Professor in Political and Social Theory, University of East Anglia
  • Michael Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Princeton University
  • Joanna Haigh, Professor of Physics, Imperial College London
  • Brian Hie, Stanford Science Fellow, Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Andy Hoffman, Holcim (US), Inc. Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan
  • Rush Holt, Former US Congressman, Current Director’s Visitor, Institute for Advanced Study
  • Martin Jay, Ehrman Professor of European History Emeritus, UC Berkeley
  • Paul Kahn, Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and Director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr . Center for International Human Rights, Yale University
  • Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia University
  • Fyodor Kondrashov, Professor of Evolutionary Genomics, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria
  • Stephen Kosslyn, President, Active Learning Sciences; Founder and CAO Foundry College; Founding Dean Minerva Schools; Former Dean of Social Sciences Harvard University
  • Darrin McMahon, Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor of History, Dartmouth College
  • Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale University
  • Miguel Nicolelis, Professor in Neuroscience, Duke University
  • Caroline Paunov, Senior Economist and Head of Secretariat for the Working Party on Innovation and Technology Policy, OECD
  • Alexandre Quintanilha, Member of Portuguese Parliament; Former Director of the Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular, University of Porto
  • Teofilo Ruiz, Distinguished Research Professor of History, UCLA
  • Stephen Scherer, Chief of Research at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
  • John Tregoning, Reader in Respiratory Infections, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College
  • Gavin Yamey, Director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University
  • Yong Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education, University of Kansas & Professor in Educational Leadership, Melbourne Graduate School of Education

ACCOMPANYING BOOK: Pandemic Perspectives: A filmmaker’s journey in 10 essays by Howard Burton.

Directly inspired by the award-winning writer, physician and self-professed “biology watcher” Lewis Thomas, 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.