Book Panel: Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror

ICLS and the Department of English and Comparative Literature present:

Medical Humanities and Pandemic Urbanisms – Book Panel: Epidemic Empire: Colonialism, Contagion, and Terror 1817-2020

April 6, 6:00 PM EST

Registration is required. You may register here.

Author Anjuli Raza Kolb (English, University of Toronto), respondent Elizabeth Povinelli (Anthropology, Columbia University), and moderator Stathis Gourgouris (Comparative Literature, Columbia University).

To mark the launch of the Medical Humanities major at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, we are proposing an inaugural virtual series, “Medical Humanities and Pandemic Urbanisms,” which will serve as an essential rallying point for Columbia faculty, current students, and alumni of the Medicine, Literature and Society track. While urban life has been overturned by the pandemic, this crisis invites us to think more broadly how the urban is an emergent form that can be redesigned to promote life and human flourishing. Featuring scholars, activists and artists from a range of fields—from epidemiology to science fiction to urban planning—the series will both illustrate the imaginative possibilities of the Medical Humanities, while also grounding its activities in the community-building work of students at Columbia University in the City of New York.

This book panel considers the Covid-19 pandemic in its historical and imperial context.

This event celebrates the launch of our new Medical Humanities major. Learn more about the major here.

Medical Humanities and Pandemic Urbanisms is co sponsored by the Center for Science and Society, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia Global Centers, Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics.