As a social historian, I wonder what makes the societal response to Ebola any different than our collective response to the Black Death, typhoid, polio, and HIV? Outbreak Narrative Collection. All rights reserved. Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand for the past month, you’ve undoubtedly thought of the recent Ebola outbreak. It has been no formidable challenge to track down Ebola’s “patient zero.” But when little is understood about disease causality and transmission, and where misdiagnosis is rampant because of the disease’s symptomological similarity to a social problem like alcoholism, it’s much more difficult. We hosted Priscilla Wald, Duke professor and author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative, for a public Zoom lecture while the university was operating remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. News reporters have scrambled to assemble our patient zero. Priscilla Wald argues that we need to understand the appeal and persistence of the outbreak narrative because the stories we tell about disease emergence have consequences. In Outbreak: Lost Hope, experience a mother's desperate search for her daughter in the midst of a nation-wide epidemic. More importantly, we are all responsible. . It is a good book that has given me a new perspective on the outbreak narrative.” — Sanjaya N. Sennayake, Medical Journal of Australia, “The outbreak narrative is powerful but malleable, and Wald’s significant scholarship traces cultural histories of contagion heretofore underexplored, demonstrating their centrality to more familiar American studies and cultural studies concerns. That the disease did not follow a prescribed pattern made only its misdiagnosis predictable. By clicking sign up, I agree that I would like information, tips and offers about Microsoft Store and other Microsoft products and services. Buy. A terrible accident causes her to get separated from her daughter Hope and she has to fight the undead to survive... and save her daughter. The numerous popular narratives in television and film act as more than examples; they are important ways in which the outbreak narrative establishes a cultural foothold in popular imagination.” — Shayne Pepper, Journal of Popular Culture, “[Contagious] is brimming with intriguing and thoughtful analysis. Identifying the emerging infection, vital to the standard outbreak narrative, proved difficult in the case of Encephalitis Lethargica. Thousands around the world, however, lived long past 1927, imprisoned—some for decades—in their own bodies. All Rights Reserved. On sale for 2€ you cant go wrong. Additional wards were created in hospitals to care for the “chronically insane.” This is because some victims spontaneously awoke from their catatonia, seemingly without warning, and were left with Parkinsonism symptoms (both physical and mental presentation) and previously undocumented psychiatric sequelae including delirium, hysteria, uncontrolled rage, lethargy, and compulsive behaviors. All Rights Reserved. And a slight shift: the virus itself is a “bioterrorist.”. But the assumptions contained in the acronym and the pressure for answers likely helped to obscure blood, hence the blood supply, as a means of transmission. The outbreak narrative, which tells the evolving story of disease emergence, is the central theme of this book by Priscilla Wald, an English professor at Duke University. . Overview Compare editions Reviews. Experience two narrative-focused hardcore survival horror adventures as Lydia and Gwen fight for their lives trapped in the undead apocalypse. Priscilla Wald is Professor of English at Duke University. Association for Middle East Women's Studies, Labor and Working-Class History Association.