Items

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  2021-10-18

  Don't Forget Your Mask!

  The mask has had a huge impact on our sense of touch and smell. For one, breathing with a mask on was an adjustment. Tuna sandwiches became something to avoid at all costs because of the smell you could be stuck with all day by wearing a mask. There is also something to say about the feeling of a mask around your ears and over your nose. The constant practice of grabbing a mask and putting it around one's ears has become a ritual of protection or habit as we are now bound to this object like that of a cell phone which is now always on our person. The sense of touch also adapted to various kinds of masks that were promoted and the variety of masks that would be marketed for commercial value. The mask, one of the few things that forces us to run back inside the house because we forgot it. The mask, a true measuring stick for how quick we can adapt and change society for better and for worse.
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  2020-08-26

  The cover photo of 2020's chapter in history

  HIST30060 - submitted as part of history assessment. This tweet produced in August 2020 includes a photograph of the American bushfires with the caption ‘this is gonna be the cover photo in the history chapter about 2020’. Like so many other memes and tweets, this item points to the cumulative nature of the disastrous events of 2020, suggesting that the entire year can be summarised by a hellish scene of a large fire devouring all its path while a sign warns of precautions needed to protect from covid-19. The tweet also draws attention to the study of history and how future generations of historians (and school students) will be introduced to the major events of the year.
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  2020-03-27

  Class of 2020

  Holding a piece of toilet paper, everything within this picture symbolizes what has occurred in 2020, particularly to the graduating class.
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  2020-05-15

  Take All Precautions

  Front stoop on Chestnut Street; someone, presumably a tenant, has put the masks recommended by the CDC on a Green Man sculpture and a lion statue. We have to find fun & joy where we can! *I don't know who put the masks on the sculptures. Photograph taken by Ashley Enochs. *Ashley Enochs, Boston MA
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  2020-04-13

  Coronavirus Political Cartoon -- Tomb of the Unknown Delivery Guy

  This political cartoon plays on an iconic symbol of US national chauvinism: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This tomb, located in Arlington National Cemetery, commemorates the lives of soldiers that were given for our country whose remains cannot be identified. The cartoon draws this tomb and, in place of the original inscription, reads, "Tomb of the Unknown Delivery Guy." In these unprecedented times, Americans have turned to relying on delivery men and women to bring food to their door in order to limit social contact, and thus prevent the spread of the virus. As such, these delivery people's jobs are deemed "essential," whereas they still hold low status within our economic and capitalist system. They are being compared to the unknown soldiers because of a key word: unknown. They are risking infection to supply Americans with food, yet they are still under-valued by those eating the food they supply. While the country's situation should allude to the importance of low status jobs, including but not limited to the delivery people, it is highly likely that after the pandemic has ceased, these workers will continue to be unknown. By employing a well-known "American" symbol, this comparison and social commentary is made abundantly clear to the American people without needing textual explanation.