Linda Nash

Forum: Technology, Ecology, and Human Health Since 1850

The Anthropocene has seen tremendous transformations in human and nonhuman environments across the globe. The five essays in this Forum, plus a comment, explore the diverse ways in which these environments have shaped new ecologies for the spread of old diseases or the emergence and dissemination of new ones. They focus on sleeping sickness, type 2 diabetes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and malignant mesothelioma and reveal several distinct phenomena associated with disease in the Anthropocene: technological networks, ecological disruption, new evolutionary niches, novel materials, mismatch diseases, and knowledge production. Although not exhaustive, this Forum provides a broad basis for comprehending what is historically specific and significant about disease in the Anthropocene.