TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 93
brings to mind the imaginative surplus generated by the restless
practicesofbiologyandmobility.
YellowFeverandtheBiopoliticsofLocation
After these preliminary clarifications, I now want to show how
disease ecologies and the precariousness following in their wake have
been mapping onto the spaces of U.S. empire a "disease geography."
With that in mind, it makes sense to focus analytically on certain nodal
points in this geography where biological encounters are more likely to
occur than at other locations. Under the conditions of EuroAmerican
colonialism and later imperialism, port cities are good places to start
with. Not only were they the hubs for all manner of military,
commercialorpoliticalactivitieswhichhelpedbuildtheempire.Whatis
more, the presence there of infectious diseases produced material and
imaginary effects, which reflected back on the "homeland" where they
hadmedicalaswellassocio-culturalresonances.
Epidemics hold a special place in the cultural memory and the
culturalimaginaryofnations.Thus,thedevastatingplagueepidemicthat
hit Marseilles in 1720, causing more than 20,000 deaths was both a
mass-medicalandacultural,evenanintellectualevent.AsHélèneHuet
has shown, this event, even more so than the 1730 Lisbon earthquake,
"set the stage for the most important debates of the Age of Reason,
callingattentiontotheradicallimitsofscientificknowledgeandhuman
understanding" (19). Even though the often acrimonious disputes
surrounding the events to be presented here did for the most part not
achieve the level of sophistication of the French Encyclopedists,
diseases in port cities across the Americas have similarly inspired
intellectual debates about human knowledge, civic values, and the
organization of public life. From the 17thwell into the early 20th
centuriesgreatportcitiessuchasNewYork,Philadelphia,NewOrleans
were hotspots of hemispheric activity, biological and otherwise. At the
same time, they were places where precariousness and the awareness
that one's life was always in the hands of others were particularly acute
andwereradiatingfromtheretotherestofthenation.