Pandemic Re-Awakenings

The Forgotten and Unforgotten 'Spanish' Flu of 1918-1919

Edited by Guy Beiner

Offers a multi-level and multi-faceted exploration of a century of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919
Explores the hitherto unexplored vicissitudes of memory in the interrelated spheres of personal, communal, medical, and cultural histories in different national and transnational settings across the globe
Reveals how, even though the Great Flu was overshadowed by the commemorative culture of the Great War, recollections of the pandemic persisted over time to re-emerge towards the centenary of the 'Spanish' Flu and burst into public consciousness following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic
Draws together scholarship from twenty-three researchers from across the world

Pandemic Re-Awakenings

The Forgotten and Unforgotten 'Spanish' Flu of 1918-1919

Edited by Guy Beiner

Description

Pandemic Re-Awakenings offers a multi-level and multi-faceted exploration of a century of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, arguably the greatest catastrophe in human history. Twenty-three researchers present original perspectives by critically investigating the hitherto unexplored vicissitudes of memory in the interrelated spheres of personal, communal, medical, and cultural histories in different national and transnational settings across the globe. The volume reveals how, even though the Great Flu was overshadowed by the commemorative culture of the Great War, recollections of the pandemic persisted over time to re-emerge towards the centenary of the 'Spanish' Flu and burst into public consciousness following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters chart historiographical neglect (while acknowledging the often-unnoticed dialogues between scientific and historical discourses), probe silences, and trace vestiges of social and cultural memories that long remained outside of what was considered collective memory.

Pandemic Re-Awakenings

The Forgotten and Unforgotten 'Spanish' Flu of 1918-1919

Edited by Guy Beiner

Preface: History, Memory, and the Flu, Jay Winter
Introduction: The Great Flu between Remembering and Forgetting, Guy Beiner
PART I: PERSONAL HISTORIES
1:Remembering the 'Forgotten' Pandemic: Richard Collier's Collection of Personal Testimonies, Hannah Mawdsley
2:Burdens of Grief and Fractured Communities: Personal Memories and Communal Responses to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Non-Literate Societies, David Killingray
3:The Silence of the Survivors: Why Did South African Survivors of the 'Spanish' Flu Epidemic Not Talk About It?, Howard Phillips
4:'Above all else there was fear': Recollections of the 'Spanish' Flu in São Paulo, Brazil, Claudio Bertolli Filho
5:Changing Narratives of 'That' Pandemic: Re-Engaging with Oral Histories for the Centenary of the Great Flu in Ireland, Ida Milne
PART II: COMMUNAL HISTORIES
6:The Overshadowing of the Memory of 'Spanish' Flu in Poland, Lukasz Mieszkowski
7:'When two crises meet each other': Remembering 'Spanish' Flu in the Low Countries, Utz Thimm
8:'Remember me to the folks': The Great War and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Canada, Kandace Bogaert with Mark Humphries
9:'The Fell Plague of Last Year': Remembering and Forgetting the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand, Geoffrey W. Rice
10:Representation and Remembrance: The 1918-19 Influenza Epidemic in India, David Arnold
11:'The pneumonic influenza is just part of my life': Fostering Community Histories of the 'Spanish' Influenza Pandemic in Australia, Peter Hobbins
PART III: MEDICAL HISTORIES
12:Pandemic Exchanges: Narrating the 'Spanish' Flu at the Intersection of Science and History, Mark Honigsbaum
13:The Past, Present, and Future of Memory: Medical Histories of the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic in the United States, Jeffrey S. Reznick
14:The 'Ispanka' in Historical Context: The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in the Soviet Union, E. Thomas Ewing
15:'Huge but Unknown': China in the Memory of the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic, Robert Peckham
PART IV: CULTURAL HISTORIES
16:Pandemics and Comparative Forgetfulness: The Great Influenza and the Black Death, Samuel Kline Cohn, Jr.
17:Between the Great War and the Great Flu: The 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic and the Contemporary Avant-Garde, Steffen Bruendel
18:Traces in the Archive of a Great Oblivion: Ibero-American Representations of the 'Spanish' Flu, Cynthia Gabbay
19:The Practices of Social Forgetting: Rewriting, Obscuring, and Silencing the 1918 Influenza Epidemic in the United States, Nancy K. Bristow
Conclusion: Rediscovering the Great Flu, between Pre-forgetting and Post-forgetting, Guy Beiner
Afterword: The Great Flu and Modern Memory, Astrid Erll

Pandemic Re-Awakenings

The Forgotten and Unforgotten 'Spanish' Flu of 1918-1919

Edited by Guy Beiner

Author Information

Edited by Guy Beiner, Professor of Modern History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Guy Beiner is a professor of modern history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who specializes in the history of remembering and forgetting. He holds a PhD from the National University of Ireland and was a Government of Ireland Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, as well as a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, a Government of Hungary Scholar at the Central European University, a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford and a Burns Scholar at Boston College. His books on social memory/forgetting and folk history have won multiple international awards.

Contributors:

David Arnold
Guy Beiner
Claudio Bertolli Filho
Kandace Bogaert
Nancy K. Bristow
Steffen Bruendel
Samuel Kline Cohn, Jr.
Astrid Erll
E. Thomas Ewing
Cynthia Gabbay
Peter Hobbins
Mark Honigsbaum
Mark Humphries
David Killingray
Hannah Rhian Mawdsley
Lukasz Mieszkowski
Ida Milne
Robert Peckham
Howard Phillips
Jeffrey S. Reznick
Geoffrey W. Rice
Utz Thimm
Jay Winter