Dr Matheus Alves Duarte Da Silva
Research Fellow
Research areas
I am a historian of medicine and science studying pandemics, emerging infectious diseases, and zoonosis, focusing on Brazil, South America, and global history. After completing my PhD at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (September 2020), I joined the University of St Andrews as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Wellcome Trust-funded project ‘The Global War against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis’. In the project, I investigate the social and scientific history of rat-catching practices developed in Brazil, the French, British and Portuguese empires during the first half of the twentieth century. I investigate how anti-rat campaigns led to the invention of spatial and ecological concepts, such as disease reservoirs, sylvatic plague and rural plague. I have published articles in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish in the main international journals of my field, including Isis, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Medical Anthropology, Asclepio and Manguinhos. I have co-edited the special issues "Rethinking the History of Microbiology" (History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 2024) and "Disease Reservoirs: Anthropological and Historical Approaches" (Medical Anthropology, 2023) and the books “Beyond Science and Empire: Circulation of Knowledge in an Age of Global Empires (1750-1945) (Routledge, 2023)” and “Rural Disease Knowledge: Anthropological and Historical Perspective" (Routledge, 2024). I am currently adapting my thesis into the monograph “When Plague Connected the World: Anew Global History of Microbiology (1890-1920)”.
Selected publications
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Open access
A global desert: plague, rural knowledge, and epidemiological reasoning in the Brazilian backlands (1939–1965)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 7 Oct 2024, Rural disease knowledge: anthropological and historical perspectives. Alves Duarte da Silva, M. & Lynteris, C. (eds.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, p. 173-199 27 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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From universal rats to future jungle foci: actors and places of plague in Brazil (1899-1940s)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 21 Feb 2024, Empire, nation-building, and the age of tropical medicine, 1885–1960. Capocci, M. & Cozzoli, D. (eds.). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 161-180 20 p. (Medicine and biomedical sciences in modern history).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Gerbils without borders: invasiveness, plague, and micro-global histories of science (1932-1939)
Skotnes-Brown, J. & Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 22 Nov 2024, (Accepted/In press) In: Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Introduction: the scales, subjects and politics of rural disease knowledge
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M. & Lynteris, C., 7 Oct 2024, Rural disease knowledge: anthropological and historical perspectives. Duarte da Silva, M. A. & Lynteris, C. (eds.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, p. 1-16 16 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Of rats and children: plague, malaria, and the early history of disease reservoirs (1898-1930)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M. & Goodman, J., 22 Oct 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 46, 26 p., 32.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Review: Unuigbe, Ngozi Finette. Traditional ecological knowledge and global pandemics: biodiversity and planetary health beyond COVID‐19. 94 pp., illus., bibliogr. London: Routledge, 2021. £16.99 (e‐book)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 2024, In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 30, 2Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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Rural disease knowledge: anthropological and historical perspectives
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M. (Editor) & Lynteris, C. (Editor), 7 Oct 2024, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
A global war against wild rodents: sanitary tensions, anti-rodent measures, and the spectre of sylvatic plague (1927–1950s)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 4 Dec 2023, Animals and epidemics: interspecies entanglements in historical perspective. Hüntelmann , A., Jaser, C., Roscher, M. & Weber, N. (eds.). Köln: Bohlau Verlag, p. 181-196 16 p. (Tiere in der Geschichte - Animals in history; vol. 2).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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A guerra contra os ratos e os roedores selvagens no Brasil: Repensando a história das zoonoses na prática e epistemologicamente (1899-1956)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 2023, História das ciências e da saúde : tendências, temas e arquivos. dos Santos Batista, R., de Souza, C., Ferreira, L. O. & Barreto, M. R. (eds.). São Paulo: Hucitec, p. 163-184 22 p. (Medicina, sáude & história; vol. 14).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Between deserts and jungles: the emergence and circulation of sylvatic plague (1920-1950)
Alves Duarte Da Silva, M., 1 Jul 2023, In: Medical Anthropology. 42, 4, p. 325-339 15 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review