The Italian Society for the History of Science / Società Italiana di Storia della Scienza (SISS) is pleased to announce a new Seminar Series:
SISS Meets Early Careers - 2nd series 2025
The series is conceived as an informal place for early career scholars to discuss their research, present, future and past. Each session focuses on broad themes in the history of science and knowledge, bringing together diverse approaches, methodologies and chronologies. The series is open to international scholars and broad collaboration between disciplinary fields.
All seminars are held online on Zoom: https://unipd.zoom.us/j/86590524102#success
Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/@siss-societaitalianadistor9115
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29th April 2025, 4.30pm CET
Dr Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva (University of St Andrews, United Kingdom)
Title: When Infectious Diseases Became Wild: Plague, Yellow Fever, and Disease Ecology in the Brazilian Hinterland (1920-1975)
Abstract
Between 1920 and 1975, Brazil was pitted against an unprecedented sanitary phenomenon. Plague and yellow fever, two urban diseases, progressively advanced towards the Brazilian
hinterland, where they infected rural populations and wild animals, such as rodents, marsupials, and primates. The history of diseases moving from cities to wild spaces complexifies current mainstream interpretations about emerging infectious diseases. Exploring this difference, in this presentation I will ask: which knowledge about diseases becoming wild emerged in Brazil? How did Brazilian health authorities control these wild diseases? What were the social and environmental consequences of anti-wild disease measures in Brazil? In reconstructing the epistemological, political, social, and environmental dimensions of wild diseases in Brazil, this presentation aims to complexify the global history of disease ecology.
Bio: Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the global history of microbiology, tropical medicine, and disease ecology. He has co-edited the books Beyond Science and Empire (Routledge 2023) and Rural Disease Knowledge (Routledge, 2024).