Acknowledgements Introduction: Due Preparations 1. Contagious metaphor 2. Pestilence and poison winds: Literary contagions and the endurance of miasma theory 3. The French fin de siècle and the birth of social contagion theory 4. The contagion of example 5. Infectious ideas: Richard Dawkins, meme theory, and the politics of metaphor 6. Networks of contagion Bibliography Index
An innovative interdisciplinary exploration of metaphors of contagion in language and culture.
Peta Mitchell is Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Media Studies, and Art History at the University of Queensland, Australia, and author of Cartographic Strategies of Postmodernity (Routledge, 2008).
This book is a treasure-trove for references to ‘social contagion’
metaphors past and present and has interesting historical
commentaries.
*Modern Language Review*
Peta Mitchell's highly readable ContagiousMetaphor explores medical
and popular beliefs and practices aboutcontagion—and the metaphors
that shape them. Reaching back through thenineteenth century and
then ranging widely through more recent decades, sheshows how
ambivalence about figurative language and misunderstanding
ofmetaphor itself has shaped our responses to epidemics both
imaginedand experienced. From miasma to Dionysian frenzy to memes
on theinternet, Mitchell challenges our assumptions about both
language andcontagion, providing engaging and provocative analyses
of examples from film,philosophy, linguistics and literature.
*Pamela K. Gilbert, Department of English, University of Florida,
USA*
'The history of medicine and metaphor come together inContagious
Metaphor; Peta Mitchell perceptively chronicles the circulation
ofthe metaphor of contagion and the contagion of metaphor in the
current momentto show how ideas travel through language to shape
lived experience. ContagiousMetaphor anatomizes the transmission of
thought itself as it brings together astudy of the social
phenomenon of a veritable obsession with the concept ofcontagion
and a profound understanding of the role of language in creating
notjust individual, but a broadly cultural consciousness. This
study will enrichcontemporary understanding of the longstanding
appeal of contagion as a conceptand of the power of metaphor as
they circulate through, and register awidespread attempt to make
sense of, the networks of contemporary social life.'
*Priscilla Wald, Department of English, Duke University, USA*
Thisis a captivating book: interdisciplinary scholarship at its
best. Moving deftlybetween meme theory and modern literature,
nineteenth-century French socialscience and fifth-century
theological debates, Peta Mitchell's genealogy ofcontagion metaphor
reveals the intimacy, and indeed interdependency, of thesetwo
concepts. The subtlety, sophistication and scholarly rigour of
ContagiousMetaphor all but guarantee the spread of its ideas.
*Angela Woods, Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University,
UK*
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