When his school shuttered its doors in March 2020, the University of Houston historian Robert Zaretsky also turned to what he knew: novels, histories, and essays about bygone plagues. He read again old books for new insight — works by Thucydides, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne, Daniel Defoe, Albert Camus, and Mary Shelley. He also began volunteering in a local nursing home, delivering meal trays and hand-feeding impaired residents.

Author Archives: Lydia S Dugdale
Lydia S. Dugdale is a physician and ethicist. She directs the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University. She edited the book Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom (HarperOne, 2020).