16 October 2020 — 12:00 noon — online

Sumit Guha (History Department)

“Society and Information in Writing the History of Disease”

Sumit Guha’s interest in disease history originated in his study of demography. He has published on disease mortality in Victorian England in “The Importance of Social Intervention in England’s Mortality Decline,” Social History of Medicine  7,1 (1994), 89-113. His earlier work on South Asia is compiled in Health and Population in South Asia (2001/2009).

This talk, “Society and Information in Writing the History of Disease,” draws on “India in the Pandemic Age,” recently published in Indian Economic Review. The latter originated in a request from the Review to write a historical essay that would preface a more contemporary special issue of the journal. It was also written in a couple of weeks, when libraries were closed.

Addressing an audience of economists, the article tried to tease out the historical processes that produce the data series utilized by medicine and the sciences. I will present some of these larger epistemological problems in the talk.

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Sumit Guha holds the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Professorship in the UT History Department. He is the author of The Agrarian Economy of the Bombay Deccan 1818-1941 (1985), Environment and Ethnicity in India, c. 1200-1991 (1999), Health and Population in South Asia from earliest times to the present (2001), and Beyond Caste: Identityand Power in South Asia, Past and Present (2013). His most recent book, History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200–2000, was published by University of Washington Press in 2019.

Register in advance for this meeting: https://utexas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYoduqrqTwtEtLNqzLZKJdNAxyhHtyrmESy  

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

11 September 2020 — 12:00 noon — online

Graduate Student Panel: John Carranza, Jeremey Donnelly-Rutledge, Diana Heredia-López, and Alyssa Peterson

“History, Medicine, and COVID: A Roundtable”

This panel will discuss COVID-19 and insights from the history of science and medicine, followed by broader group discussion. Attendees are encouraged to bring ideas and questions to share.

Roundtable:

John Carranza is a fifth year PhD candidate in the history of science, medicine, and disability history. His dissertation analyzes the contributions of American social movements of the 1960s and ’70s in prompting the production and circulation sex education print media for people with disabilities.

Jeremey Donnelly-Rutledge is a returned Peace Corps volunteer studying the history of medicine with an interest in how international health policies are adapted by local organizations in West Africa and the Sahel. In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, how important are larger institutions in setting guidance? Is there a role for individuals and smaller organizations to play in the production of scientific knowledge around the disease?

Diana Heredia-López is a PhD candidate working on the history of dyes and early modern commerce in the Americas. She seeks to understand the changes in material life brought on by the Columbian Exchange that go beyond disease and ecological devastation.

Alyssa Peterson is in the fourth year of her PhD program and studies the intersection of health and the environment in the 18th century Atlantic world. Her dissertation will look at the relation between medicine and earthquakes in Jamaica and in the larger medical world.

This event is part of the History and Philosophy of Science weekly talk series, which will be held virtually during Fall 2020.

To attend this virtual event, please register in advance using this link:  https://utexas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkfuquqz8oHdxkgLCQFE03Ulqg40UWsYd5