Conference organized by MSH Paris Nord, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Laboratoire PLEIADE on Friday, 3rd December 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent sanitary crisis are no novelty in History. The world experienced many plagues in the past (pest, cholera, etc.) which decimated populations. Every time, the victims had to be taken care of and the city had to be rebuilt physically and morally. Every time, the emotion of the town inhabitants and authorities was huge when faced with human death and suffering.

However, each pandemic was different, especially in the way the national and local governments dealt with it as well as in the way the population reacted to the scourge. The improvements in medical sciences throughout the centuries contributed, with more or less success, to better understand the risks and invent or try proper remedies. Individuals and communities had to deal with the question of hygiene and healthiness at home and on the street. Intermittently, Church and State motivated or slowed down the progress of these “public health” experiences.

Nevertheless, despite the various degrees of emotion of the population and the strong involvement of the town authorities and of the science, medicine and humanities scholars, these improvements were not always immediately possible, and if they were, they were accessible to a privileged minority. Between fear, denial, frustration or haughtiness, the diversity of the perceptible emotions in times of major epidemics is vast. It reveals the evil and the social contradictions in matters of health. Mortality, morbidity and access to health care were often a reflection of it.

In order to understand these evolutions and their influence, as well as the improvement in the knowledge of the body and medicine, and the policies of prevention led by local authorities in their societies, this project aims to work on the notion of health and its management by various European States and towns during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the study of the emotions born of the sanitary crises. It will also consider the management of the epidemics and its impact on the policies for better hygiene as led by some major towns in Europe, between 1480 and 1790.

This key period, from Renaissance and Reformation to Enlightenment, brought new perspectives on the way the body and health were considered by the local authorities. It stimulated research for improvements in sciences and medicine for the benefit of their inhabitants. But were men and women, the children and the elderly people, the rich and the poor given an equal attention?

This project aims to propose a genuine approach of the history of health and medicine thanks to a comparative study of its evolutions in France, Scotland and Spain, among others. It will focus on towns of equal status and size such as Versailles, Paris, Marseille, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Madrid, and Seville, which all experienced an equivalent development during that period. Scotland, in particular, with the innovations in health care boosted by its world famous University and medicine school, is the starting point of our comparative approach. The social metamorphoses of these towns forced the local governments to adapt, often in emergency, to guarantee people’s safety, prosperity and hygiene.

It was the opportunity to invest and to innovate in order to reduce, when possible, the impact of epidemics. This led to new ways of considering and living life in town. The latter became more controlled, safer and eventually, a place with more opportunities for a better and more comfortable life. Of course, this official image of an urban structure protected from pestilence helped the authorities to reassure the population as much as to control it better.

We propose to articulate our approach as follows:

• emotions during epidemic times (fear.s, violence.s, mobilities, mobilization, desocialization)
• emotions as instruments and/or arguments of the mayors’ power (prevention, justification, framing of policies)
• emotions in the building of a plural memory on epidemics

We will question the various managements of epidemics by the local authorities. How were the quarantines organized? Did the measures and rules taken on the short and long terms participate to the increase in some popular anxiety? If so, were these phenomena conscious our instrumentalized? What were the medical debates? Was there resistance (traditions, personal interests or denial) from governments and/or populations? What degree of irrationality could be observed in the testimonies left to us in archives, texts and images? All being as many questions we still face today in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Please send your abstract (200 words) with a short biography by 15th April 2021 to sabrina.juillet-garzon(at)sorbonne-paris-nord.fr, sarah.pelletier(at)univ-paris13.fr, stanis.perez(at)mshparisnord.fr

Source: https://www.mshparisnord.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/AAC.Emoepi.pdf