University High School Summer Reading 2020 This Book Belongs to: __________________________ Dear University Community, Regardless of where we are in our lives, 2020 will inevitably be an inflection point in our journey. From the quarantine this spring to the protests over racial injustice in the summer to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the events we have lived through in the last few months have and will continue to impact each of us in lasting ways. The idea behind Summer Reading at University High School is to give all of us a common place from which to start the new school year. I believe there is no better place for us to start 2020-21 than leaning into where we are and what has shaped us in recent -- and sometimes over much too long -- times. In order for all of us to learn and grow through the current uncertainty, the school has assembled this list of articles to serve as our Summer Reading for 2020-21. These articles represent a wide variety of media, but they share a common publication time frame; all articles were published between April and mid-June 2020. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list – and certainly more good writing has come out since we’ve finalized our selections – but in here, you’ll find a range of perspectives on what living in our world has been like these past few months. I hope you find opportunities to think, to reflect, and to find joy in these pages. I look forward to talking with you about your reactions in the fall. Be well, be safe, and take care of one another. Alicia LaMagdeleine Head of School How to Read this Packet This mini-anthology was designed to spur your thinking on the events of the spring and summer of 2020. It is composed of three sections – one on the pandemic, one on racism and injustice, and one on living through quarantine and chaos. While you should try to read every article, start with the section or topics that interest you the most. Spend more time with some ideas, and less with others, but always read actively. Jot down questions or note your responses in the margins of these pages. Maybe do some writing of your own. We will be coming back to these topics throughout the school year. In addition to the text of the articles, we’ve tried to provide information about all of the authors included here. Many of them are active on Twitter and Instagram. If you like what they’ve said or how they’ve said it, consider following them. If you disagree with some of them, challenge yourself as to why you do, and seek out some other reputable articles that voice those concerns. Most importantly, spend some time with these thoughts. We have always lived in a highly complex world, and it grows increasingly more so every day. But, as citizens, we have a duty to participate in it. This is one tiny but important way of doing so. Table of Contents Section I - The Virus, the Pandemic, & the Economic Collapse 4 “How SARS-CoV-2 Causes Disease and Death in COVID-19” 5 The Economist “We Can’t Comprehend This Much Sorrow” 14 by Teju Cole. The New York Times Magazine “The Country is Reopening. My Patients are Still Suffering” 21 by Daniela J. Lamas. The New York Times “From Camping to Dining Out: Here’s How Experts Rate the Risks of 14 Summer Activities” 25 Morning Edition on National Public Radio “Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic” 39 by Finn Gardiner. The Disability Visibility Project Guest Blog “Downturns tend to reduce gender inequality. Not under COVID-19” 42 The Economist “In and Out” 45 by Carolyn Rennels. McSweeney’s “What Happens to Powell’s Books When You Can’t Browse the Aisles?” 48 by David Gelles. The New York Times “Coronavirus and the Climate” 51 by Walter Russell Mead. The Wall Street Journal “Coronavirus Contract-Tracing Apps Launch Across Europe Amid Hopes for Broad Adoption” 54 by Bojan Pancevski and Sam Schechner. The Wall Street Journal “Antibody Hopes and Vaccine Dreams. Parts 1 & 2” 58 National Center for Science Education “The Slur I Never Expected to Hear in 2020” 68 by Cathy Park Hong. The New York Times Section II – Racism, Injustice, & Protest 72 “America Gasps For Air” 73 by Dahlia Lithwick. Slate “Remember, No One is Coming to Save Us” 78 by Roxane Gay. The New York Times “The American Nightmare” 80 by Ibram X. Kendi. The Atlantic “The Racial Inequalities Behind America’s Protests.” 84 The Economist “Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests.” 88 by Isaac Chotineri. The New Yorker “What’s Different About this Moment” 92 by Eugene Scott. The Washington Post “How a Reporter Covers a Protest” 98 by Derek M. Norman. The New York Times “How a Mother Protects Her Black Teenage Son from the World.” 100 National Public Radio “Microaggressions Are A Big Deal: How to Talk Them Out and When to Walk Away” 105 by Andrew Limbong. National Public Radio “I Don’t Need ‘Love’ Texts From My White Friends” 111 by Chad Sanders. The New York Times “America Is Already Different Than It Was Two Weeks Ago” 113 by Joe Pinsker. The Atlantic “A Protest In the Sky” 118 by Hillary Moss. T Magazine “Finding Black Joy in Times of Crisis” 121 by Felice Leon. The Root Section III - Life & School in Quarantine & Chaos 125 “How to Get Sleep in Uneasy Times” 126 from Morning Edition on National Public Radio “Here’s How Time Works Now” 130 by Eli Grober. McSweeney’s “When the World Unravels, Braid Your Own Hair” 133 by Jazmine Hughes. The New York Times Magazine “The Unexpected Solace of Learning to Play Piano” 137 by Cristoph Niemann. The New York Times Magazine “I’m Usually a Conflict Photographer. Now I’m Documenting My Family” 157 by Paolo Pellegrin. The New York Times Magazine “Reflections on a Lost Senior Year with Hope for the Future” 160 from All Things Considered on National Public Radio “I Graduated on My Mom’s Couch” 167 by Mary Retta. The New York Times “Pandemic Leaves College Prospect in Limbo” 169 by Joe Drape. The New York Times “The End of College as We Knew It?” 173 by Frank Bruni. The New York Times “Pandemic Poems” 177 by various authors. The Poetry Society of New York “The Truth About Cocoons” 186 by Sam Anderson. The New York Times Magazine “What Birds Do For Us, and What We Can Do for Them” 191 by Jennifer Ackerman. The New York Times “You’ve Got Mail. The Old-Fashioned Kind” 193 by Sarah Needleman. The Wall Street Journal “A Letter to My Students as We Face the Pandemic” 200 by George Saunders. The New Yorker Section I The Virus, The Pandemic, & The Economic Collapse 4 About the Article: This article examines ways in which SARS-CoV-2 affects different systems in the body. The Economist is an international news magazine. Its editorial policy is to not issue bylines for its articles. The editor of The Economist is British journalist Zanny Minton Beddoes, the first woman to hold the position since the publication’s founding in 1843. The paths of destruction How SARS-CoV-2 causes disease and death in covid-19 There are direct routes and indirect ones Jun 6th 2020 5 Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our coronavirus hub The first set of lungs felt like rubber, says Rainer Claus, so damaged that it was impossible to imagine how any amount of oxygen could get through them. The lungs in the rest of the ten covid-19 victims that he and his colleagues at the University Medical Centre Augsburg, in Germany, autopsied in early April were in similarly awful condition. This has been, for the most part, the story around the world. People get infected with sars-cov-2, the virus which causes covid-19, by breathing in tiny liquid droplets containing virus particles. Those particles gain entry to the lungs, where they start reproducing themselves. If the immune system does not stop it—which it mostly does—the virus causes so much damage that the lungs can no longer do their job, ending up like those in Augsburg. But there are other facets to the disease not so easily understood. It robs some of the infected of their sense of smell; in others the toes or fingers darken as if bruised. Hearts swell; blood clots; immune systems cripple organs they are meant to be saving. Doctors around the world are trying to find out how much these various symptoms are attributable to direct effects of the virus, to secondary effects of the damage it does to the lungs, or even, in some cases, to the treatments used against it. The more of the story they can disentangle, the better the standard of care is likely to get. For the virus to attack a cell, the cell’s surface needs to be adorned with a protein which plays a role in the regulation of blood pressure and inflammation called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ace2). This is found on plenty of cells in the upper respiratory tract and lungs, as well as the linings of blood vessels and the heart, kidneys and intestines. In some cases the virus may get into those intestinal cells directly, having been swallowed.