Spill Sessions: On Culture, Crisis and Creation

Dr. Edna Bonhomme is a historian of science, writer, artist, and journalist based in Berlin. Her research explores the intersections of gender, race, and health, with a particular focus on epidemics, medical care, reproductive rights, and critical readings of illness narratives. As an artist, she has contributed to various projects at HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, including the Bwa Kayiman Festival, which commemorates the Haitian Revolution. In May 2025, her book »A History of the World in Six Plagues« (Simon & Schuster) was published. In it, she examines global histories of disease—from a cholera outbreak on a plantation in the 1830s and the spread of malaria during the Vietnam War, to the role of tuberculosis in New York City prisons and the ongoing consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. This work forms the basis of her conversation at the MARKK.