The Lifetimes of Epidemics in Europe and the Middle East

By historical accident this project, on how epidemics reorganise, synchronise and accelerate time, coincided with the COVID pandemic. Originally more historically, textually and theoretically oriented, the project group got to experience how the different temporalities of the pandemic came together. From the virus' rapid spread, and the speedy political decisions, the express-developed vaccines, to the boredom of "lock-down", and regular press conferences, the pandemic illustrated the theoretical assumptions, while at the same time, the project provided a good theoretical toolbox for understanding and studying epidemics as a temporal phenomenon. One may read about epidemics, plan for them and work systematically with public health to prevent them, but there is also an aspect of direct experience; unless one was there at the time, it is difficult to capture. At the same time, the pandemic actualised historical experiences and popular cultural representations of older pandemics, from the Black Death to the Spanish Flu, in ways that the project had hypothesised, but which was amply illustrated in practice. Moreover, the cultural repertoire with which the pandemic was dealt, had long historical roots. The pandemic tied together processes playing out on different time scales from the biological with its microbial mutations and reproduction cycles, public health's case numbers, vaccination routines and infection rates, medicine with its years of vaccine development sped up to months, and politics and bureaucracy, which often takes years and decades to implement procedures and make decisions with wide-reaching implications. Not only were these tied together, they were also made the centre of attention in all of society. At the end of the project period, the group studied how epidemics end, and how their legacies play out along multiple timelines, with important consequences long after they capture the public's attention. In addition to the COVID pandemic, the project group studied how the second plague pandemic ended in Europe and the Middle East.

Prosjektet fikk grundig drahjelp av epidemien, i og med at den akselererte både kunnskapsproduksjonen og interessen for prosjektets forskning. Prosjektgruppen gjorde det mulig å trekke på et vidt spekter av innsikter i stuet av epidemiers livstider mens disse livstidene pågikk. Prosjektmedlemmene gjorde en stor formidlinginnsats i offentligheten. Dette dreide seg om både å forske på og snakke om den erfaringen samfunnet og individene i det gjennomlevde. Fokuset på begreper og tid kan tenkes å ha gitt mange nye måter for enkeltindivider å begripe sin egen erfaring med pandemien, men dette måtte man eventuelt hatt en egen pakke for å estimere. Medlemmer av forskergruppen har fremdeles aktivitet basert på data fra prosjektet, og det vil sannsynligvis komme publikasjoner basert på disse kildene og innsiktene i lang tid etter prosjektperiodens slutt. I likhet med virkningshorisonten til prosjektets tema, nemlig epidemier, er også prosjektets virkningshorisont vanskelig å overskue idet man setter strek. Prosjektleder publiserte da også "The Multiple Temporalities of Epidemic Endings", der livstidene til de forskjelige aspektene ved epidemien blir viktige skalaer for å forstå når en epidemi slutter. Heri ligger også kimen til å forstå prosjektets effekter. Noen effekter er store og umiddelbare, men varer kanskje ikke så lenge. Andre tar det måneder og år for faktisk forstå. Foruten de ferdigstilte publikasjonene og de mange tekster som ligger til fagfellevurdering, er det kanskje de mer vanskelig håndgripelige effektene som får lengst livstid, nemlig hvordan samfunnsvitere og humanister forstår den sosiale og biologiske sammenfletningen og den temporale hendelsen et epidemiutbrudd er.

This project sets out to study what we refer to as the "lifetimes of epidemics", which include the lifetimes and mutation times of microbes, the speed of the transmission of pathogens, and the lifetimes of the human body, as well as the temporal arrangements involved in global health governance, response and control. We explore the temporal experiences and arrangements at work in biopolitical concepts and practices, in which biological, political, scientific, technological, and social temporalities combine to form "temporal arrangements", which serve to govern human lives. The long-term planning-horizon of biosecurity and the event-like immediacy of an epidemic are only two of the most striking examples. A lot of work has been done on the history of epidemics, not least on the biography of specific diseases. The objective of this project is to combine medical history, global history, conceptual history, media history, and literary criticism, in order to create a richer, more complex picture of the epidemic event. Furthermore, event will be used as an analytic term, even a prism, to gain a synchronic transnational view of what is happening in different places, such as Oslo and Istanbul. The project will map the set of concepts used to describe the epidemic event, such as "epidemic", "crisis", and "emerging disease". Using both quantitative and qualitative methods as well as methods from translation and transfer studies, we will explore how these concepts have moved, both in time and in space. At each moment of usage, new and innovative meanings compete with traditional ones, forming different layers of meaning at work in the concepts. In part these competing meanings are the results of entanglements across languages, to the extent that Norwegian and Turkish usages echoes the usage in the Anglophone world. We will also study how new concepts are coined and new meanings emerge in genres that envision future catastrophic epidemic events.