Covid-19 is not the first animal disease that has been transmitted to humans. Contemporary veterinary public health uses three main techniques to manage such diseases: culling, vaccinating, and monitoring animals. Each of these techniques is underpinned by different ontological understandings of how microbes figure in relations between humans and animals. They thus speak to one of the core problems of the social sciences, and particularly social anthropology: how does social causality emerge out of physical causality?
Reviewing how some of the most influential anthropological thinkers approached animal illnesses from bovine tuberculosis to mad cow disease, this lecture by Frédéric Keck (anthropologist and historian of philosophy) shows how our conceptions of the social have changed along with our understanding of the risk of transmission of animal diseases to humans, moving from prevention to precaution to preparedness.
Event information
- 13 January 2021, 7 pm to 8.30 pm
- Online via Zoom: Please register here to join the conversation.
- Moderator: Stefan H.E. Kaufmann, Berlin - Stefan H.E. Kaufmann is the founding and now emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, a specialist in infection biology, and one of the world’s most highly cited scientists.
- The event will be held in English.
- This event is organized jointly with the Einstein Forum and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and will be introduced by Johannes Vogel, the museum’s director.
Related links
- Further information on the event can be found here.