Infectious Historians

Mari Webel (University of Pittsburgh) discusses the impact of sleeping sickness at the turn of the 20th century in East Africa. Mari talks about the role of sleeping sickness both before and after European colonization and how this disease shaped public health more broadly. She also speaks about the experience of local inhabitants during imperial efforts to stop sleeping sickness. The conversation also covers African history, thinking about how it is taught and researched, while considering the sources that researchers use.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin

Merle and Lee consider games that feature infectious diseases in multiple media. After a brief overview of types of games and references to games that feature infectious diseases as part of their plot, the conversation focuses on two popular and successful, yet very different pandemic games where the infectious disease pandemic is central to the game: Pandemic and Plague Inc. Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which players have to quickly find cures for a few threatening diseases while avoiding too many disease outbreaks around the world. Plague Inc is a single player video game (also an app) in which players are supposed to infect the entire world and kill all the humans in it.

Nancy Tomes (Stony Brook) talks to Merle and Lee about how Germ Theory was developed in the second half of the 19th century and how the public learned of it through advertising and other forms of mass media. Nancy also talks about the central role of women in this process alongside how ideas about germs changed over the 20th century. Other topics they discuss are the centrality of the AIDS pandemic to these later developments and how some of the ideas to reduce the spread of germs that seemed outlandish at the turn of the 20th century have returned with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Priscilla Wald (Duke University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the “outbreak narrative” she outlined in her influential book Contagious. After defining the outbreak narrative as a common way to understand infectious disease outbreaks, the conversation moves to examine where the outbreak narrative is used, and why has it been so popular for so long. Other topics covered include the relationship between zombie stories and the outbreak narrative, whether COVID fits the narrative, and why there are - perhaps - reasons for post-COVID optimism.

Merle and Lee chat about four myths that have repeatedly circulated in popular media about the effects of the Black Death: it was an economic leveler that ended feudalism, it led to the Renaissance, it created modern public health, and it changed intellectual ideas about medicine. They reflect upon why these myths remain popular, since they are based upon causal ideas of history where one big event leads to another and changes the world, despite historians demonstrating their problems for decades. These myths exist across all media - this episode’s cover image, for example, is often used to accompany media coverage of the Black Death, even though it is not an image of the bubonic plague.

Vincent Racaniello (Columbia University) joins the podcast to discuss virology. The conversation includes trends and developments in virology over the past few decades. Vincent discusses the importance of vaccines in preventing pandemics, and offers an overview of the connections between politics, industry and research. Multiple references throughout the conversation touch upon the research, collaboration and potential effects of COVID-19. During the reflection section, Merle and Lee are joined by Infectious Historians’ new research assistant Tori Zirul, who offers her own take on the conversation with Vincent and its implications as well as on science outreach.

Amir Afkhami (George Washington University) talks to Merle and Lee about the 19th and early 20th century outbreaks of cholera in Iran. He begins with a broad overview of recent Iranian history in the context of infectious diseases, and continues to discuss how imperialism and colonialism shaped how cholera struck Iran. Amir then shows how modern public health emerged in the country as one of the outcomes of this disease. At the end of the conversation Amir also discusses the wider context of infectious diseases in Iran, including the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Covid-19.

Jordan Pickett (University of Georgia) comes on the podcast to talk about archaeology. The first part of the interview covers archaeology, together with its different methodologies and its challenges. In the second part, Jordan suggests different ways in which archaeology might provide evidence for the effects of infectious diseases. Mass graves - in different sites - are discussed, as well as other potential indicators of infectious diseases and their effects. Additional topics include the problem of equifinality, as well as collaboration within and between disciplines.

Image: View from late antique fortifications at Sardis, Western Turkey (credit: Jordan Pickett)

Justin Stearns (NYU Abu Dhabi) talks to Merle and Lee about his research on contagion, disease, and plague in medieval Islamic thought. Their conversation touches upon the central role of plague to Islamic thinking, since plague struck during the early conquests and the formation of the Islamic community. Justin also highlights some similarities and differences between studying these topics in the Islamic world and Christian Europe. Finally, he reflects upon how Islamic thinking about plague has been talked about during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Liat Kozma (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) speaks about medicine in the modern Middle East using a regional perspective. The conversation discusses the beginnings of modern medicine in the region, the establishment of medicine schools from Istanbul to Baghdad to Cairo, the identity and activities of the practitioners and the health contrasts between urban centers in the region and the countryside. A recurring theme is the continued interaction between the Middle East and the broader world in particular Europe, demonstrated through politics as well as scientific debates. The conversation also covers certain events such as the cholera outbreaks in the region and their context.

Episode image: Qasr al-ʿAyni, Staff of the School and Hospital 1884-1898