The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of many people around the globe and has brought to the fore discussions about the ways in which relations of power have shaped human biology and the health of populations. Focusing on these biopolitics, this collection brings together a number of historical and cultural perspectives on processes of othering in the long transnational human history of epidemics and pandemics. Contributors explore the intertwinement of biopolitics and othering with regard to specific bodies, people, and places, in relation to COVID-19 and beyond, as they discuss othering dynamics in the context of post/colonialism and with reference to a number of different cultural, political, medical and media discourses.
Price: $45.00
Pages: 246
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Publication Date:
23 April 2024
Trim Size: 8.86 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783837665055
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Social History, MEDICAL / Medical History & Records
Heike Steinhoff is Junior Professor of American Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Her research focuses on American media culture from the 19th to the 21st century, gender studies, body studies, and urban studies. She is the author of two monographs, one on makeovers and monstrosities in American culture and the other one on pirates in Hollywood cinema. She has also published on hipster culture, literary discourses of urban sexuality in 19th century America, gender in children's movies, filmic representations of metropolitan masculinities, and the interrelations of body positivity, self-help literature and popular feminisms.
Frontmatter 1
Editorial 2
Contents 5
List of Figures 7
Acknowledgments 9
1. Biopolitics, Othering, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Critical Introduction 11
2. Pandemics, Biopolitics and Coloniality: From Chronicles of the Indies to COVID-19 Fictions 35
3. 'Enlightened' Colonialism, Smallpox, and the Indigenous Other in Late Eighteenth-Century Mexico and Guatemala 55
4. 'Civilizing the Natives' with Modern Medicine: Strategies of Othering in the Implementation of Public Hygiene in Japan-Ruled Taiwan (1895-1945) 81
5. Fear of Contagion: Epistemology of Boundaries and Politics of Emotions in (Post)Colonial Development Discourses 99
6. The Other as Conspirator: Historical Roots of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories 119
7. The Quest for Tropical Nature: Utopia and Socio-Spatial Dynamics in Brazil during the COVID-19 Pandemic 139
8. Pandemic Play? Digital Sports Gaming, Fatness, and Contemporary Pandemic Imaginaries 159
9. The Virus Is Present, Presence Is Virulent: Being Co(m)present with Others in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic 175
10. The Necropolitics of Breathing: On the Scream as Resistance in Contemporary Sound Performances 205
11. Re-Negotiating Discourses on AIDS during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Roundtable Discussion 223
Authors 241
