Check out my review of Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb’s book Epidemic Empire, published in the Journal of Contemporary of Journal History. Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, where she teaches postcolonial literature, theory, and poetry.
As I write:
“Epidemic Empire is intricately structured and lofty, offering a timely contribution to the history of medicine and postcolonial studies. The book is made up of three parts: the disease poetics of empire; the body allegorical in French Algeria; and the viral diaspora. On the surface, these might seem like topics that lack common ground. But Raza Kolb reveals how the medicalization of colonized peoples shares rhetorical patterns, which is visible in how Islam features within the framework of the contagious vector. The structure – a fluid chord in search of resolution – echoes the anxieties of what it means to live through ill health, or, indeed, a pandemic.”