Giorgio Ennas presenting at conference in Naples

On 5 June, Giorgio Ennas will be presenting in Naples his paper Who is afraid to cooperate? The Sanitary Council of Tunis between fear and cooperation at the conference ‘Epidemics: contacts and contagions, reactions, and emotions’, focused on reactions and emotions in the face of epidemics in the pre-industrial age. Ennas is investigating how, between the 1830s and the 1850s, the fear of contagion induced and sustained transimperial cooperation in public health in Tunisia and produced not only conflicts, but also fostered the mutual exchange of values and benefits between Europeans and Tunisians. The creation of a sanitary council in 1835, the recruitment of foreign physicians and their enrolment in the Council by the beylical government together with European consuls, demonstrate the strong and emotional link that existed in the nineteenth century between contagion, emotions, and solidarity between states in the development of sanitary measures.

This four-day conference is organised by the Institute of History of Mediterranean Europe of the CNR (National Research Council), in collaboration with the IN-HOPPE network (International Network–Historical and Osteoarchaeological Past Populations Exploration). In this international, transdisciplinary, and diachronic meeting, the organisers aim to focus on qualitative aspects of the research in the fields of social history, medicine, mentality, and emotions, as well as archaeology, psychology, epidemiology, and molecular biology, analysed through the concepts of contact and contagion.