Events

Past Event

CPRC Seminar Series with Professor Emily Mendenhall

September 13, 2022
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Online Event

Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji

Unmasked is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus to the economy occurred in the COVID summer of 2020. State political failures, local negotiations among political and public health leaders, and community (dis)belief about the virus resulted in Okoboji being declared a hotspot just before the Independence Day weekend, when an influx of half a million people visit the town.

The story is both personal and political. Author Emily Mendenhall, an anthropologist at Georgetown University, grew up in Okoboji, and her family still lives there. As the events unfolded, Mendenhall was in Okoboji, where she spoke formally with over 100 people and observed a community that rejected public health guidance, revealing deep-seated mistrust in outsiders and strong commitments to local thinking. Unmasked is a fascinating and heartbreaking account of where people put their trust, and how isolationist popular beliefs can be in America's small communities.

About the author


Emily Mendenhall is a medical anthropologist and Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She has published widely at the boundaries of anthropology, psychology, medicine, and public health and was awarded the George Foster Award for Practicing Medical Anthropology by the Society for Medical Anthropology. Dr. Mendenhall led a Series of articles on Syndemics in The Lancet and is Editor-in-Chief of SSM- Mental Health. She has published several books, including Rethinking Diabetes: Entanglements with Trauma, Poverty, and HIV (2019), Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women (2012), and Global Mental Health: Anthropological Perspectives (2015). Her newest book is called Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji.

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CPRC