Attacking in three waves, from the spring of 1918 into early 1919, in a short time span of just several months, the so-called ‘Spanish Influenza’ pandemic wrecked unparalleled havoc. Nevertheless, until relatively recently the study of this massive global catastrophe suffered from historiographical neglect in comparison to other major events in the twentieth century. It was largely subject to cultural oblivion in the public sphere, though vivid recollections were retained in more private settings. The centennial of the pandemic offers the opportunity to redress some of the glaring lacunae in the historiography to date, in particular the relative dearth of studies of cultural history and memory.
The interdisciplinary conference explores a global-transnational cultural history of the Great Flu by examining representations of the pandemic in different countries, societies and contexts from 1918 to the present day.
19 February 2019 Goethe University, Seminarhaus, Room SH 1.109 | |
08.45 | Steffen Bruendel: Welcome Address and Introduction |
09.00 – 10.30 | Session 1: Private and Public Forgetting/Remembering |
| Guy Beiner, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva: “The Great Flu between Social Forgetting and Regenerated Memory” |
| Howard Phillips, University of Cape Town: “The Flu Pandemic in Memory: Recollections of the Spanish Flu” |
| Ida Milne, St. Patrick’s Carlow College, Carlow: “Using Oral History to Explore Transition in the Irish Remembering and Forgetting of the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic” |
10.30 – 11.00 | Coffee Break |
11.00 – 12.30 | Session 2: Mapping Memories |
| David Killingray, University of London: “Pandemic Death, Response and Memory in Non-European Societies” |
| Łukasz Mieszkowski, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw: “Virus and Lice: The 1918 - 1920 Polish Episode of the Spanish Flu Pandemic and its Rivalry with Typhus Epidemics” |
| Nancy Bristow, University of Puget Sound, North Tacoma, Washington: “Public War / Private Losses: Memory and Martial Metaphor in the United States” |
12.30 – 14.00 | Lunch Break |
14.00 – 15.30 | Session 3: Representations in Art |
| Steffen Bruendel, Goethe-University, Frankfurt: "Between the Great War and the Great Flu: How Europe's Avant-garde Coped With the Influenza Pandemich of 1918/19" |
| Laura Spinney, Science Journalist and Writer, Paris: "Did Artista Ignore the Spanish Flu, and I So Why? A Hypothesis" |
| Utz Thimm, Journalist, Frankfurt: "'When two crises inersect ...' Remembering the Spanish Flu in the Low Countries" |
15.30 – 16.00 | Coffee Break |
16.00 –17.30 | Workshop I: Publishing Popular History |
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20 February 2019 Goethe-University, Seminarhaus, Room SH 1.109 | |
9.00 – 10.00 | Session 4: Scientific Narratives |
| Mark Honigsbaum, City University, London: “Pandemic Dialogues: The ‘Spanish Flu’ and the Interplay of Science and History” |
| María-Isabel Porras, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real: “Risk Perception and Reactions to Influenza Pandemics and its Vaccines in Spain (1918 - 2009)” |
10.00 – 10.30 | Coffee Break |
10.30 – 12.00 | Workshop II: Retrospective on Previous Anniversaries |
12.00 – 13.30 | Lunch Break |
13.30 – 15.00 | Session 5: Archives and Memory |
| Liane Bertiucci and Lineti Firmo Rodrigues, Universidade Estadual do Paraná: "Spanish Flu in the Memories of the Old and the Words of the Young (Brazil, Mid-Twentieth to Twentyfirst Century)" |
| Cynthia Gabbay, FU Berlin: "Ibero-American Representations of the Spanish Flu: Traces in the Archive of a Great Oblivion" |
| Hannah Rhian Mawsdley, Queen Mary University, London: "Richard Hughesdon Collier - Remembering the 'Forgotten' Pandemic" |
15.00 – 15.30 | Coffee Break |
15.30 – 16.30 | Session 6: Representations in Media |
| Kate Barker, York University, Toronto: “Killer Advertising: How Canadians were Sold the 1918 - 1919 Influenza Pandemic” |
| Ryan Davis, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois: “Spanish Flu Then and Now, a View from Spain” |
16:30 – 17.00 | Coffee Break |
17.00 – 18.30 | Workshop III: Teaching the Pandemic’s Legacy |
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21 February 2019 Goethe-University, Seminarhaus, Room SH 1.109 | |
9.00 – 10.30 | Workshop IV: Taking Stock of the Centenary |
10.30 – 11.00 | Coffee Break |
11.00 – 12.30 | Final Discussion: Developing Cultural Histories of the Great Flu |
Organizers:
Guy Beiner, Professor of Modern History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Steffen Bruendel, Research Director, Frankfurt Humanities Research Centre, GU Frankfurt
Cynthia Gabbay, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Freie University of Berlin
