Grass Roots Books & Music

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Ben Mutschler Virtual Event

Friday October 16 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM

JOIN US ON ZOOM
REGISTER HERE:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArcOusrDgoGtBTUlRgJpUbd39uXOS314ze

In The Province of Affliction, Ben Mutschler explores the surprising roles that illness played in shaping the foundations of New England society and government from the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century. Considered healthier than people in many other regions of early America, and yet still riddled with disease, New Englanders grappled steadily with what could be expected of the sick and what allowances were made to them and their providers. Mutschler integrates the history of disease into the narrative of early American social and political development, illuminating the fragility of autonomy, individualism, and advancement. Each sickness in early New England created its own web of interdependent social relations that could both enable survival and set off a long bureaucratic struggle to determine responsibility for the misfortune. From families and households to townships, colonies, and states, illness both defined and strained the institutions of the day, bringing people together in the face of calamity, yet also driving them apart when the cost of persevering grew overwhelming. In the process, domestic turmoil circulated through the social and political world to permeate the very bedrock of early American civic life.

Ben Mutschler is Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University, where he teaches courses on early North America, the American Revolution and Early National Period, and the history of disease and disability. He is author of The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England (University of Chicago Press, 2020) and at work on a book exploring the ways in which questions of ability and disability figured into a larger discussion about the citizenship during the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In a prior life, Ben was a professional jazz musician in the Boston area, and he plays with a trio in Corvallis and environs.

This event is free and open to the public. Please register to get the password for the event and purchase his book here!