Pasteur’s Empire with Aro Velmet
Episode 87 - February 21, 2022
Aro Velmet (USC Dornsife) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on the Institut Pasteur in the context of colonial France in the late 19th century. The conversation begins with some background on colonial France and the French civilizing mission, then moves on to examine the foundation and operation of the Institut Pasteur, especially in the French colonies. Aro explains how the Pasteurians became involved in public health in the French colonies and reflects on their relationship to the French colonial state.
Further Reading
- Velmet, Aro. “The Making of a Pastorian Empire: Tuberculosis and Bacteriological Technopolitics in French Colonialism and International Science, 1890–1940.” Journal of Global History 14, no. 2 (2019): 199–217.
- Barnes, David S.. The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth Century Struggle against Filth and Germs. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
- Anderson, Warwick. “Excremental Colonialism: Public Health and the Poetics of Pollution.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 21, no. 3, The University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 640–69.
- Rogaski, Ruth. Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
- Lachenal, Guillaume. The Lomidine Files. The Untold Story of a Medical Disaster in Colonial Africa. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
Our Guest
Aro Velmet
Assistant Professor of History, USC Dornsife
