This Generation’s “Portraits of Grief”

The article investigates The New York Times ’s Covid-19 obituary series “Those We’ve Lost” by situating it within the legacy of its predecessor, “Portraits of Grief,” an obituary series following 9/11. Building on the direct comparisons that reporters and editors make between the two projects and applying a method of critical reading to all 551 obituaries from “Those We’ve Lost,” the argument is that “Those We’ve Lost” replicates the ideological framework of “Portraits of Grief” by valorizing health, energy, and strength as national virtues while tacitly marginalizing disabled lives as ungrievable, reinforcing a “return to normal” trajectory aligned with economic priorities and eugenic logics and enabled by decontextualization and depoliticization. As a result, “Those We’ve Lost” contributes to a collective memory of the Covid-19 pandemic that refuses to acknowledge its ongoing impact and devalues disabled lives, contributing to the rise of eugenics in the United States more broadly.