Medical knowledge, affects and emotions. A theoretical approach to the transformation of sensitivity in contexts of uncertainty

Abstract

Book Review: Philippa Nicole Barr (2024) “Uncertainty and Emotion in the 1900 Sydney Plague”. Cambridge University Press. The work investigates how symbols such as “dirt” in the prevailing discourses of the time, influenced by changing medical knowledge about pathogens and their contagion, impacted disgust and aversion as emotional responses, facilitating political and social interventions by state agents. At the same time, it analyzes how these interventions led to transformations in the very physiognomy of the city it analyzes, Sydney, and the social identity of its inhabitants.