Looking Sideways: Locating Epidemics and Erasures in South Asia

While focused on the United States, Rosenberg's work on epidemics offers a nuanced framing that defines the stages and unfolding trajectories of epidemics. His writing is a good starting point to analyze the scope and challenges of epidemic historiography in South Asia. To redress its gaps, I have suggested an approach focused on writing histories of epidemics "sideways" and examined plague and influenza epidemics to situate the fluid politics of lived risks and marginality, moving away from dominant interpretations that have tried to characterize epidemics as finite and episodic.