Further Information
Fellow during the summer term 2021
Dr. Edna Bonhomme [1] is a historian of science and writer and she was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. During her tenure at LMU she will
work on completing her first manuscript book "Tending to the Wounds" which explores the history of restitution and reparations (contracted with Haymarket Books) and writing her second book, "Captive Contagions" which uncovers the role that captivity has during an epidemic.
Edna earned her PhD in the history of science from Princeton University [2] and a Master of Public Health from Columbia University. Her dissertation titled, “Plague Bodies and Spaces: Medicine, Trade, and Death in Ottoman Egypt, 1705-1830 CE,” examined the commercial and geopolitical trajectory of plague and its links to commercial, provincial, and imperial policies in several North African port cities.
Her master’s thesis focused on HIV/AIDS and sex work in the Caribbean. Working with sound, text, and archives, Edna explores contagion, epidemics, and toxicity through decolonial practices and African diaspora worldmaking. A central question of her work asks: what makes people sick? Her practices trouble how people perceive modern plagues and how they try to escape from them. As a researcher, she answers this question by using textual archives and oral histories to unpack the variant notions of sickness and health as well as the modalities of care that shape the possibility for repair. Her project "Cartographies of Care" is part of her long-term research project based on interviews and media representation of African diasporic health and healing in Germany.
Some of her critical multimedia projects have been featured at Haus Kulturen der Welt, alpha nova galerie futura, and the Austrian Academy of Women Artists, Gwangju Biennale, Galerie im Turm, Display Gallery, Savvy Contemporary, Kunstverein Hildesheim, and Digital Prater Gallery. She has written for academic journals and popular press including _Aljazeera [3]_, _The Baffler [4]_, _The Guardian [5], __The Nation [6]_, _Africa is a Country, The New Republic [7], ISIS History of Science Journal, Jacobin Magazine, Journal for North African Studies, Public Books, _and other publications.
Links:
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[1] https://www.ednabonhomme.com/
[2] https://history.princeton.edu/people/edna-bonhomme
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/author/edna_bonhomme_200316212733861/
[4] https://thebaffler.com/authors/edna-bonhomme
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/profile/edna-bonhomme
[6] https://www.thenation.com/authors/edna-bonhomme/
[7] https://newrepublic.com/article/160417/global-temptation-keep-building-pipelines