Measles: Constructing a Global History

Datum
07. Feb­ru­ar 2024 

Talk by Ele­na Conis (UC Berke­ley, Jour­nal­ism and History) 

“Measles: Con­struct­ing a Glob­al History.”
Talk by Ele­na Conis
UC Berkel­Cen­ter for Health and Tech­nol­o­gy on the UCD Health cam­pus, and on Zoom.
Reg­is­ter here.

Measles is one of the old­est, most famil­iar, exten­sive­ly stud­ied, pre­ventable, and still-epi­dem­ic infec­tious dis­eases of humans. In this talk, Dr. Conis will trace measles’ his­to­ry from medieval times to the present, to show how sci­en­tif­ic and sociopo­lit­i­cal con­cep­tions and per­cep­tions of the dis­ease root­ed in space and time have made measles both a sta­ble and dynam­ic ill­ness. The talk will dis­cuss measles’ place in the glob­al his­to­ry of con­quest and empire; its role in the advent of vac­ci­na­tion and oth­er main­stays of mod­ern pub­lic health; and its sym­bol­ism in con­tem­po­rary efforts to man­age infec­tious dis­eases from small­pox to COVID.

This talk is part of the Advanc­ing Health Care Equi­ty Speak­er Series.