About the talk:
In the nineteenth century cholera spread across the globe in a series of pandemics through the creation of new linkages via trade, colonization, and new technologies, which continue to this day--most recently in Haiti. This talk looks at how cholera pandemics impacted Latin America, a region often overlooked in the global history of the disease. In particular, it looks at outbreaks in rural Argentina and focuses on how local actors engaged and debated over competing views on the cholera's contagion. In the face of uncertainty over cholera's contagion and in the context of political upheaval in Argentina, medical and government officials merged contradicting methods that supported political aspirations of further consolidating the Argentine state.

About the speaker:
Carlos S. Dimas is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. His work on the history of medicine, technology, and engineering in Latin America. In 2022 the University of Nebraska Press published his book Poisoned Eden: Cholera Epidemics, State-Building, and the Problem of Public Health in Tucumán, Argentina, 1865-1908. His work has appeared in journals and edited volumes. He is currently at work on his next book-length project, a historical study on the technology and science of hunger and nutrition in Cold War El Salvador.