02/17/2023
Congratulations, Dr. Scales!
Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Scales, Department of History, who was recently awarded a Miller Fellowship for her book “Polio and its Afterlives: Disability and Epidemic Disease in Twentieth Century France” — the first book-length scholarly study of polio and its survivors in France.
Her book brings histories of epidemic disease, public health, and medicine into sustained conversation with the social and cultural history of disability; uncovers how polio shaped France’s welfare policies and institutions, spurred vaccine and biomedical research, and mediated France’s geopolitical status in an era of decolonization and rising American predominance; and demonstrates how polio survivors—speaking as patients, activists, and professionals—played a critical role in shaping health care policies, the provision of medical and social services, and popular perceptions of disease and disability.
Earning the Miller Fellowship will allow her to complete much of the book manuscript and send a proposal sample chapters to publishers in the summer of 2024.
