“What does this have to do with everything else?” An ecological reading of the impact of the 1918–19 influenza pandemic on education

ABSTRACT

The question “What does this have to do with everything else?” refers to ecological thinking. In this article, we use an ecological approach to explore the interrelationships between the incidence of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, its trajectories and impacts on education. Our emphasis on children and their environment, as specific ecological arrangements, allows the mapping of associated social, institutional, cultural and material contexts and relations, alongside axes of experiences, behaviours and choices during a life-threatening crisis. To achieve this we apply the multiple perspectives that an ecological approach demands and use four different sources of evidence, from Sweden, Portugal, England and Spain, respectively: a teacher obituary, a magazine article, a school Log Book and an artist’s drawing. Each piece of evidence helps to identify lines of articulation and strands of entanglements projected in time and space. Their joint ecological reading enables the grasping of glocal connections, uncovering a few tesserae of a much larger mosaic, and pointing to the inherent potential of an educational-ecological approach to the study of past pandemics.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecology
• at risk
• pandemic
• 1918–19 influenza
• Spanish flu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Own emphasis. Fritjof Capra (1996) The Web of Life (London: Harper Collins, 1996), 17.

² Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).

³ John Holden, The Ecology of Culture (London: AHRC, 2015).

⁴ The pandemic could be described as the first “modern” pandemic and is “an important analogue for Covid-19 not only because of its similar virulence but also because many of the [non-pharmaceutical interventions, e.g. quarantine, and travel restrictions] that were applied then are being used to mitigate Covid-19”. See Stefan Gössling, Daniel Scott and C. Michael Hall, “Pandemics, Tourism and Global Change: A Rapid Assessment of COVID-19”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism 29, no. 1 (2021): 1–20 (here: 5). See also Ida Milne, “The Pandemic Patient: Long-Term Impacts of the 1918–19 Influenza”, in Perspectives on the Pandemic: Thinking in a State of Exception. A De Gruyter Humanities Pamphlet 13, ed. Manuela Gerlof and Rabea Rittgerodt (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter [2021]), 40–4, in which the 1918–19 pandemic is called the “nearest comparator” of the current one (p. 41). Although it did not originate in Spain, it is usually referred to as the “Spanish flu”. In contrast to many belligerent countries, Spain did not censor the news and therefore it was the first country in which the influenza outbreak was widely reported in the media. See Svenn-Erik Mamelund, “Influenza, Historical”, in International Encyclopaedia of Public Health, ed. Kris Heggenhougen and Stella Quah (San Diego: Academic Press, 2008), 597–609 (here: 602).

⁵ Linda Chisholm in Tony Honorato and Ana Clara Bortoleto Nery, “History of Education and Covid-19: The Crisis of the School according to African (Akanbi, Chisholm), American (Boto, Cerecedo, Cunha, Kinne, Rocha, Romano, Rousmaniere, Southwell, Souza, Taborda, Veiga, Vidal) and European (Depaepe, Escolano, Magalhães, Nóvoa) Researchers”, Acta Scientiarum: Education 42 (2020): 1–21 (here: 6). See Howard Phillips, “Black October”: The Impact of the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 on South Africa (Cape Town: Government Printer Archives Yearbook of South African History, 1990); In a Time of Plague: Memories of the “Spanish” Flu Epidemic of 1918 in South Africa (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society for the Publication of Southern African Historical Documents, 2018).

⁶ Svenn-Erik Mamelund, “Influenza, Historical”, in International Encyclopaedia of Public Health, ed. Kris Heggenhougen and Stella Quah (San Diego: Academic Press, 2008), 597–609 (here: 601).

⁷ Alice Reid, “The Effects of the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic on Infant and Child Health in Derbyshire”, Medical History 49 (2005): 29–54; see also Christopher McKnight Nichols et al., “Reconsidering the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic in the Age of COVID-19”, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 19 (2020): 642–672.

⁸ Scott Prudham, “Ecology”, in The Dictionary of Human Geography, ed. Derek Gregory et al. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 175–7 (here: 175).

⁹ Respectively referring to: Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 128–9; Bruno Latour, “Factures/Fractures: From the Concept of Network to the Concept of Attachment”, RES 36 (1999): 20–31 (here: 31); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Trans. and Foreword by Brian Massumi (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, “Rhizome”, Ideology & consciousness 8 (1981): 49–71; Tim Ingold, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2013); Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Heike Weber, “Material Flows and Circular Thinking”, in Concepts of Urban-Environmental History, ed. Sebastian Haumann, Martin Knoll and Detlev Mares (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020), 125–44; Michel Serres, Atlas (Paris: Éditions Julliard, 1994).

¹⁰ Latour, Reassembling the Social, 257–8.

¹¹ Tim Ingold, Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials. Working Paper #15 (ESRC National Centre for Research Methods–NCRM Working Paper Series 05/10, 2010), 3, 11–12; see also Tim Ingold, “When ANT meets SPIDER: Social Theory for Arthropods”, in Material Agency: Towards a Non-anthropocentric Approach, ed. Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris (New York: Springer, 2008), 209–15 (here: 210–11).

¹² Diane Nijs, Advanced Imagineering: Designing Innovation as Collective Creation (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019), 44–5. In that regard, we decided against a theoretical model such as Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1917–2005) ecological theory. See, e.g., Urie Bronfenbrenner, “The Social Role of the Child in Ecological Perspective”, Zeitschrift für Soziologie 7, no. 1 (1978): 4–20. While “clearly appealing as a conceptual tool for guiding interventions” it is less suitable for our explorative historical account. See Malin Eriksson, Mehdi Ghazinour and Anne Hammarström, “Different Uses of Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in Public Mental Health Research: What is their Value for Guiding Public Mental Health Policy and Practice?”, Social Theory & Health 16 (2018): 414–33 (here: 418).

¹³ Patrick Joyce, Going to My Father’s House: A History of My Times (London: Verso, 2021), 318. See also Jed Rasula, Genre and Extravagance in the Novel: Lower Frequencies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 160–80.

¹⁴ Own emphasis. Latour, Reassembling the Social, 256–7.

¹⁵ The potential of our collection of selected sources was tested in a series of workshops attended by colleagues and doctoral and undergraduate students at the universities of Vic, Umeå and Landau respectively.

¹⁶ John Clarke, “Finding a Place in the Conjuncture: A Dialogue with Doreen”, in Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues, ed. Marion Werner, Jamie Peck, Rebecca Lave and Brett Christophers (London: Agenda Publishing), 201–13 (here: 205); see also Lawrence Grossberg, “Cultural Studies in Search of a Method, or Looking for Conjunctural Analysis”, New Formations 96–97 (2019): 38–68 (here: 60).

¹⁷ Margareta Åman, Spanska sjukan: Den svenska epidemin 1918–1920 och dess internationella bakgrund [Spanish Flu: The Swedish epidemic 1918–1920 and its international background] (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1990); Jonas Holtenius and Anna Gillman, “The Spanish flu in Uppsala: Clinical and Epidemiological Impact of the Influenza Pandemic 1918–1919 on a Swedish County”, Infection Ecology and Epidemiology 4, no. 1 (2014): 21,528; Nationalencyklopedin, https://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/l%C3%A5ng/spanska-sjukan (all links accessed on 20 February 2022).

¹⁸ Cf. Carl Wilhelm Herlitz, Skolhygienens historia: En översikt främst av utvecklingen i Sverige [The history of school hygiene: An overview of primarily its development in Sweden] (Stockholm: Bergvall, 1961); Kjell Lindeberg and Olov Trovik, Läroverket som arkitektuppgift under 1800-talet [The state grammar school as an architect commission during the nineteenth century] (Stockholm: Konsthögsk:s arkitekturskola, 1987); Lena Hammarberg, En sund själ i en sund kropp: Hälsopolitik i Stockholms folkskolor 1880–1930 [A sound soul in a sound body: Health politics in Stockholm folk schools 1880–1930] (Stockholm: HLS förl., 2001); Lena Hammarberg, Skolhälsovården i backspegeln [School health in the rear-view mirror] (Stockholm: Skolverket, 2014); Anna Larsson, Björn Norlin and Maria Rönnlund, Den svenska skolgårdens historia: Skolans utemiljö som pedagogiskt och socialt rum [The history of the Swedish schoolyard: The outdoor school area as an educational and social space] (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2017), 61–64, 85–87, 95–97.

¹⁹ Karin Johannisson, “Folkhälsa – det moderna projektet från 1900 till 2:a världskriget [Public health: The modern project from 1900 to the 2nd world war]”, Lychnos (1991): 139–195; Sören Edvinsson, Den osunda staden:Sociala skillnader i dödlighet i 1800-talets Sundsvall [The unhealthy town: Social inequality regarding mortality in nineteenth century Sundsvall] (Umeå: Umeå University, 1992); Sören Edvinsson and John Rogers, “Hälsa och hälsoreformer i svenska städer kring sekelskiftet 1900 [Health and health reforms in Swedish towns at the turn of the century 1900]”, Historisk tidskrift 4 (2001): 541–64.

²⁰ Björn Norlin, “Pandemin och skolan: Spanska sjukan i lärarpress och skolors årsredogörelser [The pandemic and the school: The Spanish flu in teacher journals and school yearbooks]”, Vägval i skolans historia: Tidskrift från Föreningen för svensk undervisningshistoria 4 (2020), https://undervisningshistoria.se/pandemin-och-skolan-spanska-sjukan-i-lararpress-och-skolors-arsredogorelser/.

²¹ Norlin, “Pandemin och skolan”. The example from the school in Kristinehamn can be found in Svensk Läraretidning 43 (1918): 688.

²² Ibid.

²³ Svensk Läraretidning 44 (1918): 707.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ “Uma Nova Ilustração Portuguesa [A New Portuguese Illustration]”, Ilustração Portuguesa, no. 118 (5 February 1906), 93: http://hemerotecadigital.cm-lisboa.pt/OBRAS/IlustracaoPort/1906/N118/N118_item1/P12.html.

²⁶ Álvaro Sequeira, “A Pneumónica [The Pnemonic]”, Medicina Interna 8, no. 1 (2001): 49–55; see also José Manuel Sobral and Maria Luísa Lima, “A epidemia da pneumónica no seu tempo histórico”, Ler História [online] 73 (2018), https://doi.org/10.4000/lerhistoria.4036.

²⁷ “Escoteiros [Boy Scouts]”, Ilustração Portuguesa, no. 668 (9 December 1918): 461, http://hemerotecadigital.cm-lisboa.pt/OBRAS/IlustracaoPort/1918/N668/N668_item1/P3.html.

²⁸ “O escotismo e a epidemia [Scouting and the epidemic]”, Ilustração Portuguesa, no. 670 (23 December 1918): 515, http://hemerotecadigital.cm-lisboa.pt/OBRAS/IlustracaoPort/1918/N670/N670_item1/P17.html.

²⁹ “O escotismo e a epidemia”.

³⁰ Robert Baden-Powell, Paddle your own canoe (n.p.: Read Books, 2013, orig. 1939), 130.

³¹ Ana Cláudia S. D. Vicente, “A Introdução do Escutismo em Portugal [The Introduction of Scouting in Portugal]”, Lusitana Sacra, 2ª série, no. 16 (2004): 203–45.

³² Vicente, “A Introdução do Escutismo em Portugal”, 222.

³³ Sequeira, “A Pneumónica”.

³⁴ Baden-Powell, Paddle your own canoe, 127.

³⁵ “O escotismo e a epidemia”.

³⁶ Nikolas Rose, “Governing ‘advanced’ liberal societies”, in Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, ed. Thomas Osborne, Andrew Barry and Nikolas Rose (London: UCL Press, 1996), 41–2.

³⁷ The MoH was the local Medical Officer of Health.

³⁸ The issue of school closures was left to local authorities on the basis that it was largely dependable on local circumstances; see Niall Johnson, Britain and the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic: A Dark Epilogue (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 130.

³⁹ Mary S. Morgan, “Travelling Facts”, in How well do Facts travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, ed. Peter Howlett and Mary S. Morgan (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), 3–39 (here: 14).

⁴⁰ The Local Government Board was a supervisory body overseeing public health and local government responsibilities in England and Wales. The Ministry of Health Act of 1919 abolished the Local Board. The film is available online: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-dr-wise-on-influenza-1919-online.

⁴¹ Johnson, Influenza Pandemic, 132.

⁴² See Katharine M. Millar, Yuna Han, Martin Bayly, Katharina Kuhn and Irene Morlino, Confronting the Covid-19 Pandemic: Grief, Loss and Social Order (London: LSE, 2021).

⁴³ It was common practice in schools for inspection reports to be physically attached to pages in the Log Books.

⁴⁴ Joaquim Renart, 1918. Diari. 1961 (I–VI Vols) [1918. Diary. 1961] (Barcelona: Proa, 2002). All this material and other objects and letters of interest remain at the Biblioteca de Catalunya: https://www.bnc.cat/Fons-i-col-leccions/Cerca-Fons-i-col-leccions/Renart-Joaquim.

⁴⁵ Ministerio de la Gobernación, Ley relativa á la mendicidad de menores [Law linked at the children’s begging] (2 August 1903). Law, BOE-A-1903-4713, 1747: https://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE//1903/214/A01747-01747.pdf; Ministerio de Estado, Convenio para reglamentar la tutela de menores [Agreement to act as a children’s guardian] (1 May 1905). Agreement, BOE-A-1905-2768, 437–438, https://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE//1905/121/A00437-00438.pdf; Ministerio de Gracia y Justicia, Ley disponiendo que los menores de quince años contra quienes se dicte auto de procesamiento no sufran prisión preventiva [Law establishing that children under 15 years old cannot be in preventive jail] (1 January 1909). Law, BOE-A-1909-2, 1–2, https://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE//1909/001/A00001-00002.pdf.

⁴⁶ Laura Almudéver, La epidemia de gripe de 1918 y los profesionales de Enfermería. Análisis a través de la prensa española [The flu epidemic in 1918 and the nursery professionals: Analysis using the Spanish newspapers] (Valencia: Ediciones CECOVA, 2016), 117.

⁴⁷ Ferran Sabaté, “La sanitat pública a Catalunya entre 1885 i 1939 [The health service in Catalonia between 1885 and 1939]”, Catalan Historical Review 10 (2017): 161–74.

⁴⁸ Through the Barcelona council minutes, we can see how many meals every day were served at the Escola del Bosc [Forest school] and look at the incidence of child influenza. In 1920, for instance, when people though that “the flu” was over, one can see the persistence of the disease in the population.

⁴⁹ Ministerio de Fomento, Ley de Instrucción pública autorizada por el Gobierno para que rija desde su publicación en la Penínsulaé Islas adyacentes, lo que se cita [Educational Public Law, authorised by the government to regulate, from its publication, in the whole Peninsula and Islands (10 September 1857). Law, BOE-A-1857-9551, 1–3, https://www.boe.es/datos/pdfs/BOE/1857/1710/A00001-00003.pdf.

⁵⁰ Looking at the City Council archives of one small city nearby Barcelona, Vic, which was in a rural zone where some citizens from Barcelona sought refuge to escape from the epidemic, one can trace through letters the discussions between the public administration and the Catholic institutions. The religious schools in Vic, the Seminar and Boys school Col.legi de Sant Josep sent letters to the Council, informing that they were not to follow the instruction of closing the school, because they had to obey the Bishop. See Arxiu Ajuntament de Vic, Correspondència (12 October 1918). Opposed to those letters, there were other from public schools that accepted without any doubt the regulation.

⁵¹ Ian Grosvenor and Gyöngyvér Pataki, “Learning through Culture: Seeking “Critical Case Studies of Possibilities” in the History of Education, Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 3 (2017): 246–67.

⁵² Michel Foucault, Birth of the Clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (Abingdon: Routledge, 1989), 27–8.

⁵³ Quoted in Tony Honorato and Ana Clara Bortoleto Nery, “History of Education and Covid-19: The Crisis of the School according to African (Akanbi, Chisholm), American (Boto, Cerecedo, Cunha, Kinne, Rocha, Romano, Rousmaniere, Southwell, Souza, Taborda, Veiga, Vidal) and European (Depaepe, Escolano, Magalhães, Nóvoa) Researchers”, Acta Scientiarum: Education 42 (2020): 1–21 (here: 9). See in that regard also ISCHE’s Education & Pandemics Archive, which is initiated by Karin Priem and Ian Grosvenor with support from Inês Félix, Stefanie Kesteloot, Ami Kobayashi, Yver Melchor, Lilli Riettiens and Rafaela Silva Rabelo: https://www.ische.org/education-and-pandemics-archive/#/

⁵⁴ Michael J. Watts, “Political Ecology”, in The Dictionary of Human Geography, 545–7 (here: 546).

⁵⁵ Prudham, “Ecology”, 177.

⁵⁶ Because we want to make the ecological approach the core of our research, we have established an international research group on History of Educational Ecologies (HEC). In future publications, we will further develop this research agenda.

⁵⁷ Steward T.A. Pickett, Jurek Kolasa and Clive G. Jones, Ecological Understanding: The Nature of Theory and the Theory of Nature. Second edition (Burlington MA: Academic Press, 2007).

⁵⁸ Scott Prudham, “Human Ecology”, in The Dictionary of Human Geography, 348–59. This is visible in the range of existing ecologies, as is highlighted by the accompanying adjectives such as “new”, “cultural”, “human”, “political”, “urban”, “social”, “industrial”, “community”, “media” and “educational”.

⁵⁹ See also Latour, Reassembling the Social, 257–8.

⁶⁰ Prudham, “Ecology”, 175.

⁶¹ John Urry, “Complexity”, Theory, Culture & Society 23, no. 2–3 (2006): 111–17 (here: 111).

⁶² Prudham, “Ecology”, 177.

⁶³ See, e.g. Mark Vellend, “Conceptual Synthesis in Community Ecology”, The Quarterly Review of Biology 85, no. 2 (2010): 183–206; John H. Lawton, “Are there general laws in ecology?”, Oikos 84, no. 2 (1999): 177–92.

⁶⁴ Ann Markusen, Anne Gadwa, Elisa Barbour and William Beyers (2011). California’s Arts and Cultural Ecology (s.l.: James Irvine Foundation, 2011), 5.

⁶⁵ Ulf Strohmayer, “Modernity”, in The Dictionary of Human Geography, 471–4 (here: 471); Chris Otter, “Technosphere”, in Concepts of Urban-Environmental History, 21–32 (here: 23); often referred to as “glocalization”, see e.g. Victor Roudometof, Glocalization: A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2016).

⁶⁶ See also Merle Eisenberg, “Dangerous Comparisons – Historical Pandemics and Covid-19”, in Perspectives on the Pandemic, 11–15.

⁶⁷ Strohmayer, “Modernity”, 472.

⁶⁸ Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 2007), 242. It is no coincidence that we quote Benjamin, since he, especially based on this 1936 essay, has been described as having “definite media ecological tendencies”. See Lance Strate, “Media Ecology 101: An Introductory Reading List–Revised 2019”, https://www.media-ecology.org/Media-Ecology-101.

⁶⁹ One of those other early media ecologists according to Strate, “Media Ecology 101”.

⁷⁰ Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1979; orig. 1973), 91; see also Ian Grosvenor and Angelo Van Gorp, “At School with the Avant-Garde: European Architects and the Modernist Project in England”, History of Education 47, no. 4 (2018): 544–63 (here: 545).

⁷¹ Strohmayer, “Modernity”, 471.

⁷² Ibid., 472.

⁷³ Sebastian Haumann, Martin Knoll and Detlev Mares, “Urban-Environmental History as a Field of Research”, in Concepts of Urban-Environmental History, 9–20 (here: 9); Strohmayer, “Modernity”, 471; Urry, “Complexity”, 115; see also Maria Grever, Een ecologische breukervaring? Corona en historisch besef. An Ecological Rupture? Corona and Historical Consciousness (Hilversum: Verloren, 2021); Capra, The Web of Life; Capra, 2001; Latour, Reassembling the Social.

⁷⁴ Urry, “Complexity”, 112.

⁷⁵ Strohmayer, “Modernity”, 471.

⁷⁶ Dominik Collet, “Risk and Resilience”, in Concepts of Urban-Environmental History, 79–94 (here: 79–80); see also Latour, Reassembling the Social, 258.

⁷⁷ Collet, “Risk and Resilience”, 80, 82.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 80–2.

⁷⁹ Strohmayer, “Modernity”, 472.

⁸⁰ Mass-market newspapers as well as telegraphic communications could spread news of an epidemic ahead of its arrival. See Mark Honigsbaum, “The Art of Medicine: Revisiting the 1957 and 1968 Influenza Pandemics”, The Lancet 395 (2020): 1824–6 (here: 1825). See also Mc Knight Nichols et al., “Reconsidering the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic”, 663.

⁸¹ Edwin D. Kilbourne, “Influenza Pandemics of the 20^th Century”, Emerging Infectious Diseases 12, no. 1 (2006): 9–14 (here: 10).

⁸² The 1957–58 influenza pandemic is usually referred to as the “Asian flu”. BMJ, “Death from Asian Influenza”, The British Medical Journal 2, no. 5093 (1958): 434–5 (here: 434). The twentieth century saw three outbreaks of influenza pandemics, in 1918, 1957 and the “Hong Kong flu” in 1968.

⁸³ Stephen Cushion and Bob Franklin, “Public Service Broadcasting: Markets and ‘Vulnerable Values’ in Broadcast and Print Journalism”, in Can the Media serve Democracy? Essays in Honour of Jay G. Blumler, ed. Stephen Coleman, Giles Moss and Katy Parry (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 65–75.

⁸⁴ William Merrin, Media Studies 2.0 (London: Routledge, 2014), 43. As illustrated by a radio report that the German regional (southwestern) public-service broadcaster Südwestrundfunk broadcasted on 16 October 1957: https://www.swr.de/swr2/wissen/archivradio/asiatische-grippe-in-deutschland-1957-100.html.

⁸⁵ William Merrin, “Still Fighting ‘The Beast’: Guerrilla Television and the Limits of Youtube”, Cultural Politics 8, no. 1 (2012): 97–119 (here: 98).

⁸⁶ See Lawrence Grossberg, “Cultural Studies in Search of a Method, or Looking for Conjunctural Analysis”, New Formations 96–97 (2019): 38–68, for the idea of connecting the structural-materialist with an affective map. The uncertainty that comes with a pandemic born of a novel virus and the suffering happening to real people is emphasised in McKnight Nichols et al., “Reconsidering the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic”.

⁸⁷ Grossberg, “Cultural Studies in Search of a Method”, 59.

⁸⁸ Own emphasis. See Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 69. See also Manuel Delanda, Assemblage Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 1.

⁸⁹ Michel Serres (in conversation with) Bruno Latour, Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press), 102, 111–12.

⁹⁰ Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 12.

⁹¹ Interestingly, this is not consistent with Sebald’s pessimistic critique of civilisation, as discussed in Uwe Schütte, “W.G. Sebald & the Natural History of Covid-19”, in Perspectives on the Pandemic, 70–76.

⁹² Serres (in conversation with) Latour, Conversations, 112.

⁹³ Benjamin, “The Work of Art”, 236.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angelo Van Gorp

Angelo Van Gorp is Professor of History of Education at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau, Germany.

Eulàlia Collelldemont

Eulàlia Collelldemont is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic–UCC) and director of the Museu Universitari Virtual de Pedagogia (MUVIP).

Inês Félix

Inês Félix is postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.

Ian Grosvenor

Ian Grosvenor is Emeritus Professor of Urban Educational History at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Björn Norlin

Björn Norlin is Associate Professor of History and Education and Senior lecturer in Education at the Department of Education, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.

Núria Padrós Tuneu

Núria Padrós-Tuneu is a lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic–UCC)