Call for Contributions Epidemics/Technologies - Session proposal ICHST 2017, Rio de Janeiro
Please find below the call for contributors to our session on
epidemics as objects of technological intervention at the 25th
International Congress of History of Science and Technology
(ICHST/ICOHTEC call)
The deadline for proposals (250 words + CV) is February 12, 2016.
Cfp: Epidemics as technologies
Session proposal for ICHST/ICOHTEC, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 23 to 29 July 2017
Chair: Prof. Dr. Mikael Hård
Session organizers: Catarina Caetano da Rosa and Nils Kessel
Deadline: February 12, 2016
Epidemics
are recurrent phenomena in history. They transgress borders,
move across time and space and affect different forms of life – both
literally and metaphorically. Each epidemic disease poses
specific challenges to societies such as Zika today. Hence, epidemic
diseases and threats are perfectly suited for being analyzed in a global
history perspective.[1]
The scholarship on the history of
epidemics is rich. Whereas many studies come out of the history of
medicine and the social and political sciences, the proposed panel
session aims at examining epidemic diseases (such as typhoid, cholera
and yellow fever) explicitly from the perspective of the history of
technology. Thus, two dimensions will be analyzed: The relationship of
the discourses about epidemic threats and the technical measures taken
to confine them. While historical scholarship on epidemic practices is
often focusing on local or national experiences with epidemics, many
studies on epidemic discourses are either focusing on the nation-state
or are geographically poorly situated. In this panel, we would like to
bridge this gap by analysing discourses and technology-based practices
in conjunction with each other.
Technology is considered in a
broad sense as an ensemble of tools embedded both in discourses and
actions taken to prevent, attenuate, control or eradicate life threats.
On the one hand, a metaphorical way of speaking about epidemics can
often be observed. On the other hand, interventions depicted
as improvements such as the upgrading of sanitarian infrastructures,
the introduction of quarantine measures, the intensification of legal
sanctions and the development and distribution of drugs are put into
operation. Therefore, the session seeks to examine and discuss the
interrelationship between epidemics and technology by focusing on
various periods, geographical foci, epidemics, and technologies.
Propositions for
papers including an abstract of 250 words and a one-page CV should
be submitted by February 12, 2016. The abstract and CV should be sent
via e-mail to cdr@ifs.tu-
For more information about the Congress of ICOHTEC and ICHST please consult the websites http://www.
Coordinators of the session:
Catarina Caetano da Rosa
E-Mail: cdr@ifs.tu-darmstadt.
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
Nils Kessel
E-Mail: nils.kessel@u-pem.fr
Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société (IFRIS), France
[1] In
the latest issue of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Mark
Harrison pleads for a global history of health, medicine and disease.
Harrison, Mark, A Global Perspective: Reframing the History of Health,
Medicine, and Disease, in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 89/4
(2015), pp. 639-689.