Pandemic Life: Fragments of Our Stories

Beginning on September 1, 2020, a group of fourteen of us at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey -- comprised of graduate students, undergraduate honors college students, and a history professor -- began to journal about our experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to journal into December 2020. Some of us are located in Newark during this period, but more of us are located elsewhere in New Jersey; a few are in other places in the United States and the world. We represent a wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities, and life experiences and range in age from late teens / early twenties into our forties. Each week, one student will curate excerpts from some of our journals, and we will share them publicly. Our goal is to offer a window into our subjective experiences of life during the pandemic in near real-time. We also aim to create a usable archive for future historians.

Because journaling is a personal activity, many of us elected to be identified by pseudonyms, initials, or first name. A few chose to use their full real name.

Archival versions of all linked material is available (or will be shortly) in the collection Pandemic Life: Fragments of Our Stories.

Credits

Professor Audrey Truschke's Archiving COVID-19 class (Fall 2020 term)