When
Virtual Charlas con Café
with Ryan Kashanipour, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University and Associated Faculty in History and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona
Zoom link:
https://arizona.zoom.us/j/396710066
About the talk:
From decade long outbreaks of smallpox and measles to recurrent eruptions of typhus and influenza, epidemic outbreaks of disease were a part of the everyday experiences of the inhabitants of colonial Yucatán. Across the colonial period, from the sixteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, the region served as the mainland entry point for many Old World diseases. So endemic were these diseases that a chronicler of the seventeenth century remarked that “it was rare for someone to even pass through the land and without falling sick with one epidemic disease or another.” Local populations lived with and negotiated diseases at an everyday level, so much so that it shaped the nature of knowledge and colonial relations. As the world deals with a global pandemic, this talk will look to the history of diseases in the colonial Yucatán to open up conversation about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction.
From decade long outbreaks of smallpox and measles to recurrent eruptions of typhus and influenza, epidemic outbreaks of disease were a part of the everyday experiences of the inhabitants of colonial Yucatán. Across the colonial period, from the sixteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, the region served as the mainland entry point for many Old World diseases. So endemic were these diseases that a chronicler of the seventeenth century remarked that “it was rare for someone to even pass through the land and without falling sick with one epidemic disease or another.” Local populations lived with and negotiated diseases at an everyday level, so much so that it shaped the nature of knowledge and colonial relations. As the world deals with a global pandemic, this talk will look to the history of diseases in the colonial Yucatán to open up conversation about how past experiences with epidemics can open up new forms of understanding and interaction.