Repression of Migrants and Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Learning from 21st-Century and 18th-Century Syria

Date and Time

May 1, 2025
04:30PM - 06:00PM EDT

Location

Harvard CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

Aaron David Shakow, PhD
Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

This talk will discuss tuberculosis among Syrian migrants in Lebanon and its relationship to the international migration regime. Shakow will trace the evolution of today’s system of interstate border controls from European encounters with sickness in and around Syria during the eighteenth century. What is the ongoing legacy of these encounters? How can the history of public health inform efforts to support migrants in the present day?

Dr. Aaron Shakow is a lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. From 2017-2021, he was director of the Initiative on Healing and Humanity at the Harvard-Dubai Center for Global Health Delivery, an interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars in the social sciences and humanities and frontline health care delivery institutions. A current book project, with Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee, is titled "Bait and Switch: Democracy Versus Global Health." Dr. Shakow has taught history at Harvard, MIT and Brandeis, and edited the journal "Health and Human Rights." He received his PhD from Harvard University.

Contact: Liz Flanagan

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