Visual Culture and Pandemic Disease Since 1750: Capturing Contagion

Images discussed range from the depiction of people and places to the invisible realms of pathogens and emotions, while topics include the messaging of disease prevention and containment in public health initiatives, the motivations of governments to ensure control, the criticism of authority in graphic satire, and the private experience of illness in the domestic realm. Essays explore biomedical conditions as well as the recurrent constructed social narratives of bias, blame, and othering regarding race, gender, and class that are frequently highlighted in visual representations. This volume offers a pictured genealogy of pandemic experience that has continuing resonance. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, history of medicine, and medical humanities.