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Medicine, Metaphor, and Art: Epidemics of Yellow Fever in Havana, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, 1821-1901

Novillo Corvalan, Patricia (2025) Medicine, Metaphor, and Art: Epidemics of Yellow Fever in Havana, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, 1821-1901. Journal of Romance Studies, . (In press) (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:109770)

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Language: English

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Abstract

This essay traces the zigzagging peregrinations of yellow fever, from its origins in West Africa to Cuba (via the transatlantic slave trade), then, from Cuba to Spain (via global commercial routes) and, later, southward to Buenos Aires (via Brazil). It examines the multiple meanings of the disease – be they mythic, metaphoric, or ideological – particularly through its entanglements with class, race, geography, and empire. Focusing on three port cities stalked by yellow fever throughout the nineteenth century: Havana, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, it explores how artists imagined and represented the disease, elucidating the historical situations out of which these representations sprang, as well as offering a compelling example of what Susan Sontag theorises as the uses and abuses of illness as metaphor. By mapping artistic depictions of yellow fever from different periods and places, the essay engages with the disease’s intimate links with globality, inequality, and empire.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled keywords: global health, yellow fever, Latin America, metaphor, disease, empire
Subjects: F History United States, Canada, Latin America
F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F1201 Latin America (General)
P Language and Literature
P Language and Literature > PB Modern Languages
P Language and Literature > PC Romance philology and languages
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN851 Comparative Literature
R Medicine
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Institutional Unit: Schools > Language Centre
Former Institutional Unit:
Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Patricia Novillo-Corvalan
Date Deposited: 25 Apr 2025 14:37 UTC
Last Modified: 20 May 2025 09:00 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/109770 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Novillo Corvalan, Patricia.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0751-1930
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