De-Centring Europe in Plague Studies

The Anthropology Department presents a talk by Professor Nahyan Fancy.

“De-centring Europe in Plagues Studies: Revising the Chronologies of Plague Pandemics Using 600 Years of Arabic Writing” will explore how we can fruitfully combine work in modern paleogenetics and phylogenetics with old-fashioned historical examinations of texts and contexts, to reevaluate the chronologies of the plagues pandemics. It will focus on Arabic texts (medical, religious and historical)—a corpus of writings which, thus far, seem to be the only set of writings that persistently and consistently engaged with plague as a disease even in between the two pandemics.

How can that help us challenge the standard Eurocentric periodization of the pandemics? And what other lessons can we draw with regards to disease history and pandemics from these works?

Dr. Nahyan Fancy is the Al-Qasimi Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter in England. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, serves on the Editorial board of the journal Medical History, and serves as the Secretary of the Commission on the History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies.