Sleeping Sickness in East Africa with Mari Webel
Episode 27 - September 13, 2020
Mari Webel (University of Pittsburgh) discusses the impact of sleeping sickness at the turn of the 20th century in East Africa. Mari talks about the role of sleeping sickness both before and after European colonization and how this disease shaped public health more broadly. She also speaks about the experience of local inhabitants during imperial efforts to stop sleeping sickness. The conversation also covers African history, thinking about how it is taught and researched, while considering the sources that researchers use.
Further Reading
- Randall Packard, A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other Peoples (Johns Hopkins Press, 2016)
- David Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
- Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, Bitter Roots: the Search for Healing Plants in Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
- Journal of African History open-access special edition on epidemics and public health
Our Guest
Mari Webel,
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh.
