Article ID: CBB687253716

Spectacles of Difference: The Racial Scripting of Epidemic Disparities (2020)

unapi

This essay explores how epidemics in the past and present give rise to distinctive, recurring racial scripts about bodies and identities, with sweeping racial effects beyond the Black experience. Using examples from cholera, influenza, tuberculosis, AIDS, and COVID-19, the essay provides a dramaturgical analysis of race and epidemics in four acts, moving from Act I, racial revelation; to Act II, the staging of bodies and places; to Act III, where race and disease is made into spectacle; and finally, Act IV, in which racial boundaries are fixed, repaired, or made anew in the response to the racial dynamics revealed by epidemics. Focusing primarily on North America but touching on global racial narratives, the essay concludes with reflections on the writers and producers of these racialized dramas, and a discussion of why these racialized repertoires have endured.

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Authors & Contributors
Natali Valdez
Foss, Katherine A.
Marcia Chatelain
Kathryn Olivarius
Chanoff, David
Hatch, Anthony Ryan
Concepts
Public health
Medicine and race
Epidemics
Racism
Medicine and politics
African Americans
Time Periods
19th century
21st century
20th century
18th century
Early modern
Renaissance
Places
United States
North America
New Orleans (Louisiana, U.S.)
Great Britain
Singapore
East Asia
Institutions
Association of Minority Health Professions Schools (AMHPS)
United States. Office of Indian Affairs
Henry Phipps Institute, Philadelphia
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