THE ANIMAL TURN
S5E4: Epidemiological Dividual with Christos Lynteris
Claudia talks to Christos Lynteris, an anthropologist with a long history of researching some of the interconnections between animals and disease. In this episode they focus on rats and the third plague pandemic highlighting how rats went from being understood as in relation to others to being cemented as a vilified species in the spread of disease.
About Christos Lynteris
Christos Lynteris is Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on the anthropological and historical examination of epidemics and has pioneered the field of the anthropological study of zoonotic diseases. His most recent book is Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography (MIT Press, 2022). He was also a co-author of Sulphuric Utopias: A History of Maritime Fumigation and co-editor of Plague and the City. He is also the leader of the project “The Global War Against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis” which you can read more about here. Connect with Christos on Twitter (@VisualPlague) or via the St Andrew’s website (here).
Featured Readings:
● Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography by Christos Lynteris
● “Scurrying seafarers: shipboard rats, plague, and the land/sea border” by Jules Skotnes-Brown
● Sulfuric Utopias: A History of Maritime Fumigation by Lukas Engelmann and Christos Lynteris
● Mahamari Plague: Rats, Colonial Medicine and Indiegnous Knowledge in Kumaon and Garwal, India by Christos Lynteris
● The Pasteurization of France by Bruno Latour
Animal Highlight: Mosquitos
In this animal highlight Amanda focuses on mosquitoes. Arguably one of the most vilified animals when it comes to the spread of disease, Amanda tries instead to reflect on some of their sensory experiences of these dynamic creatures
"We may not know when the rat got plague in that we don't know when rats started carrying the disease but at least we know when plague got rats and that's in 1894" - Christos Lynteris, Forthcoming, How Plague Got Rats
Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; the Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research Collective for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Christiaan Menz for his editing work, and Amanda Bunten-Walberg for the Animal Highlight