Professor Claire Chambers (University of York) and Dr Ashok Malhotra (Queen’s University Belfast) will present their new books, which together trace how ideas of health, environment, and disease have been shaped by colonial power, global inequality, and scientific authority.

In Decolonizing Disease, Chambers examines pandemics from the 1918 flu to Covid-19, showing how public health crises have exposed and deepened racial, environmental, and socio-economic inequalities. Bringing together disease, climate crisis, and political fault lines of race, class, and gender, the book challenges the idea that pandemics are ever socially “levelling.”

Malhotra’s Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri-La, 1900–1969 traces the colonial roots of the organic farming movement. It reveals how scientific research in British India was reworked by British and US advocates to promote organic agriculture, and how the Hunza people were mythologised as a model of health and vigour tied to “traditional” diets and farming practices.

The books will be introduced by Dr Daniel Roberts and Professor Steven Wilson, who will act as discussants, followed by a Q&A with the authors. Expect lively conversation, free wine and an informal atmosphere.