WIGH SEMINAR: JIM DOWNS, 'THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONTAINMENT': COLONIALISM, SLAVERY, THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, AND THE MAKING OF EPIDEMIOLOGY

Topic: The Geography of Containment: Colonialism, Slavery, the American Civil War, and the Making of Epidemiology
Speaker: Jim Downs, Associate Professor of History, Connecticut College.
Commentator: Evelynn M. Hammonds, Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science; Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
Graduate Student Commentator: Westenley Alcenat, PhD Candidate in History, Columbia University; Visiting Scholar, MIT.

This graduate-faculty research seminar is designed to bring together interested faculty and students on a continuing basis to cover topics on global history. It is part of History 2950hf, Approaches to Global History, and includes both reading sessions designed for graduate students and research sessions open to the interested public during which students and faculty participants will present current research. Faculty participants will be drawn from a number of schools, and, most especially, from the group of fellows in global history who are spending the academic year 2015/16 at the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History. Discussions will be moderated by Professors Sven Beckert and Charles S. Maier.

Papers will be precirculated and available on the course website (Harvard ID required) or by request to jbarnard@fas.harvard.edu one week ahead of time.

Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are in the Lower Level Library, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy Street, from 4:00-6:00pm.