Charters, Erica M. (Author)
McKay, Richard A. (Author)
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 62
Issue: 2
Pages: 223-233
This spotlight issue encourages reflection on the current COVID-19 pandemic, not simply through comparisons with previous epidemics, but also by illustrating that epidemics deserve study within their broader cultural, political, scientific, and geographic contexts. Epidemics are not solely a function of pathogens; they are also a function of how society is structured, how political power is wielded in the name of public health, how quantitative data is collected, how diseases are categorised and modelled, and how histories of disease are narrated. Each of these activities has its own history. As historians of science and medicine have long pointed out, even the most basic methodologies that underpin scientific research—observation, trust in numbers, the use of models, even the experimental method itself—have a history. They should not be taken as a given, but understood as processes, or even strategies, that were negotiated, argued for and against, and developed within particular historical contexts and explanatory schemes. Knowing the history of something—whether of numbers, narratives, or disease—enables us to see a broader range of trajectories available to us. These varied histories also remind us that we are currently in the midst of a chaotic drama of uncertainty, within our own unstable and unfolding narrative.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Stefania Achella;
(2020)
Ragioni della scienza e ragioni politiche. Alcune considerazioni filosofiche
(/isis/citation/CBB319793049/)
Article
Davide Orsini;
James A. Ostenson;
Francesco Brigo;
Mariano Martini;
(2023)
Pandemics and Mental Disorders: From the Thought of the 19th Century Psychiatrist Andrea Verga to long-term effects of COVID-19
(/isis/citation/CBB934514442/)
Article
Stefano Santasilia;
(2020)
Pandemia e stili di vita: pazienza
(/isis/citation/CBB845461986/)
Article
Silvia Caianiello;
(2020)
Accelerazione. Riflessioni sulle temporalità della pandemia
(/isis/citation/CBB072366901/)
Article
Brian Dolan;
(2020)
It Wasn't Supposed to Be a Coronavirus: The Quest for an Influenza A(h5n1)-Derived Vaccine and the Limits of Pandemic Preparedness
(/isis/citation/CBB603005256/)
Book
Fernando Rosa;
Alessandra Parodi;
(2024)
Essere in una pandemia. Filosofia, medicina e Covid-19
(/isis/citation/CBB335674855/)
Article
Michael P. Kelly;
Federica Russo;
(2021)
The epistemic values at the basis of epidemiology and public health
(/isis/citation/CBB856188518/)
Article
Nükhet Varlık;
(2020)
Rethinking the History of Plague in the Time of Covid-19
(/isis/citation/CBB776966901/)
Article
Poliana Maia;
Rosária Justi;
Monique Santos;
(2021)
Aspects About Science in the Context of Production and Communication of Knowledge of COVID-19
(/isis/citation/CBB033270554/)
Book
Kevin Quigley;
Kaitlynne Lowe;
Sarah Moore;
Brianna Wolfe;
(2024)
Seized by Uncertainty: The Markets, Media, and Special Interests that Shaped Canada’s Response to COVID-19
(/isis/citation/CBB412214418/)
Book
Jacalyn Duffin;
(2022)
COVID-19: A History
(/isis/citation/CBB826714266/)
Article
Kyle Harper;
(2020)
Germs, genomes, and global history in the time of COVID-19
(/isis/citation/CBB422578756/)
Article
Cohn, Samuel K., Jr.;
(2012)
Pandemics: Waves of Disease, Waves of Hate from the Plague of Athens to A.I.D.S.
(/isis/citation/CBB001213108/)
Book
Jacques Pépin;
(2021)
The Origins of AIDS
(/isis/citation/CBB084551418/)
Article
Rosamaria Alibrandi;
(2018)
When Early Modern Europe Caught the Flu. A Scientific Account of Pandemic Influenza in Sixteenth Century Sicily
(/isis/citation/CBB688058877/)
Book
Xiaoping Fang;
(2021)
China and the Cholera Pandemic: Restructuring Society under Mao
(/isis/citation/CBB112297498/)
Book
Claudia Cerchiai Manodori Sagredo;
(2020)
Malattie e pandemie nell’antica Roma: Cicerone, Plinio, Svetonio, Catone, Tacito, Marziale, Plauto, Seneca et alii
(/isis/citation/CBB650880862/)
Article
Luisa Simonutti;
(2020)
Uneasiness. John Locke e le inquietudini del presente
(/isis/citation/CBB647837757/)
Article
Luisa Simonutti;
(2020)
Paure, contaminazioni e alterità. Da Bacone a Kapuściński
(/isis/citation/CBB346421875/)
Article
Susanne Bauer;
(2021)
Pandemic infrastructure: Epidemiology as compartmentalization
(/isis/citation/CBB933898213/)
Be the first to comment!