%0 Journal Article 
%A Fonseca Suárez, Carlos
%T Viral events: epidemiology, ecology and the outbreak of modern sovereignty

%D 2017
%@ 2171-9594
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10017/29592
%X Like most revolutionary processes, the history of the Haitian revolution has typically been narratedfrom   the   perspective   of   revolutionary   heroes.   Whether   as   the   feat   of   Toussant L’Ouverture,  Francois  Macandal  or  Jean-Jacques   Dessalaines,   historians   have   often   tried   to encapsulate the revolution within the narrow margins of human causality. In this article, I attempt to  sketch  the  contours  of  another  possible  history:  an  ecological  history  in  which  the  feats  of  the revolutionary  heroes  give  way  to  the  radical  power  of  nature.  By  focusing  on  the  role  that  two epidemic phenomena—"yellow fever" and "mesmerism"—had within the revolution, I attempt to show how the emergence of an “epidemiological discourse” proved to be fundamental for imagining the outbreak  of  modern  sovereignty  as  it  occurred  in  Saint-Domingue.  Drawing  on  the  ecological history  of  the  Greater  Caribbean  and  the  routes  of  exchange  that  determined  the  historical development of its radical environment, the article attempts to imagine what an ecocritical history of the revolutionary process could look like. It lays out a political cartography unlike that which one usually  encounters  in  history  books,  following  a  mosquito  in  its  route  from  Africa  to  America  and retracing  the  way  in  which  a  European  pseudo-science—mesmerism—arrived  from  France  to America. The epidemiological discourse surrounding both yellow fever and mesmerism reveals the emergence  of  a  new  sociological  language  capable  of  figuring  the  crisis  of  imperial  modes  of sovereignty  as  well  as  the  emergence  of  new  modes  of  radical  subjectivity.  Departing  from  the works   Deleuze   and   Guattari,   but   also   in   dialogue   with   recent   debates   in   ecocriticism,   the significance  of  the  Haitian  Revolution  is  reconsidered  in  its  relationship  to  the  emergence  of sociology  as  a  language  capable  of  explaining  the  emergence  of  the  modern  political  subject  par excellence: the modern multitude.

%K Mesmerism
%K Yellow fever
%K Biopolitics
%K Sovereignty
%K Haitian Revolution
%K Greater Caribbean
%K Mesmerismo
%K Fiebre amarilla
%K Biopolítica
%K Soberanía
%K Revolución haitiana
%K Gran Caribe
%K Literatura
%K Literature
%K Medio ambiente
%K Environmental science
%~ Biblioteca Universidad de Alcala