Angeliki Myrillas-Brazeau

Research Topic

"A Global History of Smallpox: Symptoms of Colonial Expansion"

Supervisor: Dr Erica Charters

My doctoral project studies rumours of epidemic disease in seventeenth-century North America. I analyse surviving written records to show that information about disease was intentionally spread between communities to gain advantages in trade, missionary work, and warfare. Then, as now, the circulation of information about health and disease had very real effects on communities.

My work will question existing narratives about the role of disease in European conquest, and encourage publics to think more broadly about the non-biological effects of diseases past and present.